Although tropical and resurgent infectious diseases are most often associated with Africa, Asia and Latin America increased global travel and trade between regions has led to a growing number of cases being catalogued in Europe and the USA. There has also been a notable resurgence of diseases that were considered to be on the decline in these regions. The scale of modern travel is huge with there being an estimated international cross-border movement of two million people per day (1). Changes in climate and the adaptation of microorganisms, enabling them to survive in previously hostile environments, have also led to these diseases gaining prominence in areas where they are not considered endemic. The danger of these emerging incidents is that as these diseases are not expected to occur in industrialised regions, the symptoms may be confused with other illnesses.
