International Maritime Health 2010, tom 61, nr 3

The cruise industry has expanded greatly in recent decades, and more than 12 million North Americans went on cruises in 2006 [1]. The cruise companies are concerned about passenger and crew injuries and accurately register data from all injuries occurring during each cruise to detect patterns to prevent future accidents. The accident reports comprise all injuries registered at the medical centre aboard...

The 6th workshop "How to handle Import Containers safely" of the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf, Institutefor Occupational and Maritime Medicine, took place on 11 November 2009 and focused on the issue of how health risks due to fumigant residues and toxic industrial chemicals in import containers can be prevented (Baur et al. 2009; Baur X. 2010). The workshop was for the first time bilingual, in English and in German, and was attended by 140 international participants...

Wind, wave action, and physicochemical processes result in the formation of aerosols at the water-air interface. In general,aerosol formation is connected with the mechanisms of air bubble bursting due to wind-induced wave breaking, snowfall, rain, and the creation of splatter droplets. Air bubbles can also form on the water surface because of abrupt warming in the spring period or increased biological production...

Dengue fever is one of the most widespread imported febrile diseases in European travellers returning from tropical regions [1]. It is caused by four RNA virus serotypes (DEN- 1, -2, -3, and -4) of the genus Flavivirus, family Flaviviridae, "related" with viruses of West Nile fever, yellow fever, and Japanese encephalitis. The disease is transmitted by mosquitoes of the Aedes family, mainly A. aegypti, and less frequently by A. albopticus and A. polynesiensis [2]...

"Emporiatrics" is the modern term coined to describe the science and health of travellers. The word actually comes from the Greek emporos, meaning "one who goes onboard a ship as a passenger," and iatrike, meaning "medicine" [1]. Travel by sea is one of the earliest forms of transportation. According to the Cruise Line International Association, an estimated 12 million North Americans took a cruise in 2006 (www.cruising.org/press/overview2008)...

Shipping creates an environment in which the spread of communicable disease is favoured due to the living and working conditions on the ship. The risk of infection with Varicella Zoster Virus (VZV) for people travelling in the semi-enclosed environment of a ship is characterized by a medium-long incubation period and very high infectivity, life-long immunity after infection, and the availability of a safe vaccine...

Death has for a long time been accepted in the maritime environment as a fatality which is always present amongst men working at sea. Accepted by professionals as a "risk of the job" from which very few individuals could escape, it has unfortunately been written in many tragic stories, telling of long-term dangerous navigation. However, dying on a boat is a fate that seems avoidable in numerous cases...

There are no international rules for medical equipment on passenger vessels. However, the American College of EmergencyPhysicians has published guidelines for medical care on cruise ships, now widely accepted as a standard for cruises marketed from North America [1]...

Occupational asthma (OA) accounts for 10ñ15% of all cases of adult onset asthma [1] and occurs in a variety of industries. OA has been well described in the commercial fishing industry, particularly in the handling and processing of crustaceans. As the exponential growth of the world population has led to rising food protein demands and subsequent increases in commercial fishing, OA incidence has the potential to increase [2]...

Skin disorders are a very common occupational hazard with reported rates ranging from 4.3-8.2 cases per 10 000 full time workers in all occupations in the United States (US) from 1992-2001 [1]. In 2001 in the US the rate of occupational dermatitis in workers in the agriculture, mining, and fishing industries combined was higher than any other category in US National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health statistics [1]...