Risks of visiting homeland

IMMIGRANTS who return to low-income countries to visit friends and relatives are at greater risk for serious but potentially preventable travel-related illnesses than others who travel to those countries, according to researchers in Australia.

One factor: These immigrant travelers are less likely to seek pre-trip travel advice and be immunized against travel-related diseases, says Dr. Karin Leder, a researcher at the Royal Melbourne Hospital in Australia.

They “are often unaware that they are at risk of infections when they return home,” Leder says. Often, they think they are immune to diseases they may have had as children, but the immunity wanes, she says, when they leave their homelands.

Immigrants visiting their homelands were more likely to get malaria, typhoid fever, influenza and other respiratory syndromes, as well as sexually transmitted diseases.

Leder’s team looked at information entered from late 1997 to 2004 into the GeoSentinel database, a global surveillance network set up by the International Society for Travel Medicine and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. The travelers went to sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America and other countries.

-- Kathleen Doheny

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A place for those vacation videos

TRIPMATES, an L.A.-based interactive online travel community that connects people all over the world, has a new travel video feature called Trip Flicks.

At www.tripmates.com, travelers can meet locals or others traveling to the same destination, find a “trip buddy” so they don’t have to travel alone, share information, travel blogs and photos. Since late last month, they can also share trip videos.

Footage can be uploaded from a desktop computer, digital camera, webcam, cellphone or YouTube account.

James Gilden

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Briefly

New rules: Monday, the European Union relaxed airline carry-on rules, allowing liquids and gels in containers up to 4 ounces. Products must be packed in a clear, resealable 1-liter or 1-quart plastic bag and presented to screeners. The rules are in effect at all EU airports and in Norway, Iceland and Switzerland.

Warning: The State Department last week warned Americans traveling to or in Fiji about heightened “civil-military tensions” in the South Pacific nation and the possibility of violence. Info: www.travel.state.gov.

More late flights: The nation’s airlines’ on-time arrival rate declined in September from the same month last year, from 82.7% to 76.2%, according to the Department of Transportation’s Air Travel Consumer Report of Nov. 2.