Photogallery of traveler’s dermatoses

A passion for traveling the world has become very popular because it provides the opportunity to see countries far beyond our home with our own eyes. However, as is well known, the surrounding world is dangerous in general — especially when it is a foreign world full of surprises and not always pleasant ones: infections, parasites, helminths, sharp corals, mountain peaks, the depths of the sea and many other things pose a high risk of harming one’s health.

Modern tourists increasingly show a particular interest in exotic tropical countries, which has given rise to so-called “travelers’ dermatoses,” sometimes creating diagnostic and therapeutic problems for physicians in temperate-climate countries. Contact dermatitis resulting from exposure of the skin to certain environmental factors unusual in tropical conditions is very often encountered among travelers’ dermatoses. In resort areas of Turkey, Egypt, India, North Africa and other countries visited by Russian tourists, the application of exotic henna tattoos on the skin is a popular service, and allergic dermatitis may develop at the tattoo site. Cases of coral and jellyfish dermatitis and phytophotoreactions are also known.

Various infections that, entering skin lesions, can lead to the development of long non-healing ulcers may pose a danger to tourists in tropical countries. At present, a distinct entity is primarily the true tropical ulcer, which is a persistent and sluggishly progressing ulcerative process with a predominant localization on the skin around the ankle joint. The disease occurs in most countries with a hot, tropical climate, primarily among the indigenous population, while it arises noticeably less often in tourists during their usually short stays in the tropics — which precisely creates diagnostic and therapeutic difficulties for physicians at the tourists’ home who are unfamiliar with tropical pathology.

The tropics are also rich in numerous insects, ticks, small parasites and their larvae, which, when they get on human skin, cause rashes accompanied by severe itching. An example of such a pseudo-scabies condition in the tropics is trombiculiasis, caused by the parasitism on human skin of the larvae (chiggers) of trombiculid mites (Trombiculidae), which often parasitize elephants, reptiles and water guinea pigs. Chiggers do not penetrate under the human skin but rather bite off or pierce its superficial layers. Three to six hours after chigger bites, the symptoms of trombiculiasis develop — papules, vesicles and bullae accompanied by intense itching, sometimes swelling, and prolonged persistence.

Finally, from some endemic tropical zones one can return with signs of leishmaniasis.