Epidemiological and etiological features of travel-related febrile illnesses in hospitalized Russian children and adults: A single-centre, retrospective analysis in Moscow.

Background: A number of factors can lead to differences in infectious disease morbidity in children versus adults after a trip abroad. We aimed to investigate the epidemiological and etiological features of infectious diseases in children after international travel.

Methods: we analyzed the medical records of 2135 patients (416 children) who were hospitalized during the period 2009-2017 after return from international travel.

Results: Hospitalized children were under the age of 1 year in 8.7% of cases, 1-3 years - 39.4%, 4-6 years - 17.3%, 7-11 years - 16.8%, 12-17 years - 17.8%. Children were hospitalized after visiting the following main destinations: Turkey (15%), Egypt (12%), Central Asia microregion [11%] and Thailand (9%). Hospitalizations among children occurred mainly in summer (38.0%; CI 33.3-42.4). In adults there were no significant seasonal differences. Children were more likely to have acute diarrhea (18.3 vs 11.1%), acute respiratory tract infections (51.2 vs 41.2%) and enterovirus infections (8.2 vs 3.1%). Among the non-endemic infections for Russia, 8 children were diagnosed with dengue fever, 1 with typhoid, 1 with malaria, and 1 with wild-poliovirus excretion.

Conclusion: children were mainly hospitalized during summer. Among hospitalized children, almost half was under 3 years old. In children acute respiratory infection and intestinal infections predominated, while in adults, vector-borne diseases were more frequently observed.