Needle Stick Exposure Facts

Being at a distance from their regular healthcare providers is both a source of increased risk and anxiety for those recurrently on the road. Medication regimens, ongoing medical problems, and even the increased statistical risk of a new medical event raise the stakes when far from home in an unfamiliar or inadequate healthcare system.

There have been a significant number of cases of leishmaniasis (protozoan infection) of the skin in individuals travelling in Iraq and Afghanistan. At IMC we have just treated 8 individuals working in Iraq for multiple, chronic, nonhealing sores due to Leishmania.

West Nile virus (WNV) likely spread to the U.S. in 1999, having been endemic in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Africa, and is currently active along the western Gulf coast, during mosquito high-season.