Travel, Migration and Emerging Infectious Diseases

Emerging infectious diseases (EID) threaten public health and are sustained by increasing global commerce, travel and disruption of ecological systems. Travelers could play a role in importing EIDs and could be a sentinel of major epidemics. In connection with the extension of poverty, urbanization, extensive livestock rearing and globalization, we could be exposed to a third epidemiological transition characterized by zoonotic diseases and infections with multidrug-resistant bacteria. The risk appears low for emerging infectious diseases, or very low for high-risk emerging infectious diseases, but higher for multidrug-resistant enterobacteriaceae carriage with possibly limited consequences. The role played by migrants is weaker than imagined. Immigrants don’t play the role of sentinel epidemic so far. They could play a role in importing multidrug-resistant enterobacteriaceae, but it is poorly evaluated.