Prevention is the most important action to take in public health 11. In Mexico, intestinal infectious diseases represent the fifth cause of child mortality, while respiratory tract infections are the sixth 10. Of these people, 420,000 die, including 125,000 children under the age of 5 years 9. Up to 600 million people worldwide (1 in 10) get sick after ingesting contaminated food (bacteria, virus, parasites, toxins and chemicals) every year. However, there are three diseases that occur irrespective of age, the most frequent ones being respiratory tract infections, intestinal infections and urinary tract infections, in that order 8. The frequency of these diseases depends on the age group of the patient (children up to one year of age, 1-4 years old, 5-9 years old, 10-14 years old and 15-18 years old) 7. The main causes of disease in children and adolescents are gingivitis and periodontal disease, ulcers, gastritis and duodenitis, conjunctivitis and acute otitis media. Hence the importance of knowing the diseases that spread in this location for pediatric patients, being the population with the greatest interest in this study due to the vulnerability that this stage of life represents.Īccording to the data published by the Secretary of Tourism of Mexico, there were 39.3 million international tourists in 2017, 4,218,000 more than that observed in 2016, and equivalent to an annual growth rate of 12% 4. However, these are not the only people who move around inside an airport, since many of them are accompanied by relatives who are not going to travel, and it is imperative to consider all the people who work in the airport: maintenance personnel, licensed taxi drivers, and even pilots and flight attendants. Also, in 2019, this airport conducted 50,308,049 passengers, representing a 5.4% growth rate 6. In 2017, an international airport in Mexico conducted 44,732,418 passengers and, by 2018, this number rose to 47,700,547 passengers 5with an annual growth rate of 6.6% in regards to the passengers conducted in 2017.
Nonetheless, predicting the future risk of communicable diseases conveys a challenge due to the various shifting and unknown factors 4. This field represents roughly 8% of the gross domestic product worldwide and has 32 million workers 3.ĭue to the mobility of people by air, international air traffic increases the potential for transmitting infectious diseases from one country to another, but it is unlikely that people living near an airport would become infected.
In 2010, airlines of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) member states transported 2.5 million passengers and 43 million tons of goods. By 2030, the number of travelers is expected to increase from 2.5 billion to 5 billion a year, and the number of flights is also expected to increase from 26 million to more than 50 million.
This trend is rising, either for professional, social, recreational or humanitarian reasons. Nowadays, an increasing number of people travel internationally and longer distances at a faster pace 2. These, together with ambiental, demographic, economic, social and cultural changes, as well as developments in the healthcare field, have transformed the country’s characteristics and affected the epidemiological profile and characteristics related to the presence of disease or death in the Mexican population 1. Since the beginning of the 20th century, there have been trascendental changes in the epidemiological behavior of diseases in Mexico. This information can be used not only as a basis for decisions regarding public health, but also for the selection of equipment and supplies to be used in the medical service of an airport (pre-hospital care), in addition to the type of training required by the medical personnel. It is concluded that diseases of digestive (presumed infectious gastroenteritis) and respiratory origin (pharyngitis) were the most frequent. The study was observational, descriptive, retrospective and cross-sectional. The purpose of this study was to identify the most frequent pediatric diseases in the Emergency Medical Service of an international airport in Mexico. Prevention is the most important action to take in public health, as it cannot be carried out if the diseases are not detected in a timely manner. The main causes of disease in children and adolescents vary according to the age group. The frequency in which people travel internationally increases the potential for transmission of infectious diseases.