Book excerpt: Travellers depend upon their family physician and practice nurse for essential advice in planning travel and practitioners need to be able recognise an increasing array of diseases in a new, mobile population. The explosion in international tourism fuelled by fast, cheap transport has meant that the specialty of travel medicine has had to evolve rapidly. Travel medicine now extends well beyond infections in warm climates and includes exposure to new environments, new cultures, new hazards, and new medical problems including emerging and re-emerging infections. 'Fast Facts: Travel Medicine' is an invaluable practice resource which provides expert practical coverage of all aspects of health problems that may be incurred during travel abroad. It focuses on the provision of sound, personalised advice in the areas of preparation, risk- assessment, planning and personal responsibility. This fact-filled, accessible guide will see near-constant use in the primary healthcare setting. Contents: • Pre-travel health assessment • Geographical distribution of health hazards • Individuals with special considerations • Motion sickness and jet lag • Vaccines • Malaria • Other mosquito-transmitted diseases • Food- and water-borne illnesses • Other parasitic diseases • Diseases transmitted by ticks, lice, mites and fleas • Miscellaneous infectious diseases • Environmental and climatic factors • Returned travellers