Most common infectious diseases acquired in the wilderness?
People traveling in the wilderness can acquire infectious diseases. These can be caused by organisms such bacteria, viruses, protozoans, or fungi. They can be transmitted through drinking contaminated water, or by transmission from one person to another.
Does anyone know of any reliable, quantitative data comparing the probabilities of getting different infectious diseases while hiking in the wilderness?
Quantitative doesn't mean it has to be high precision -- even order of magnitude numbers would help in sorting out what are the more important risks. It would be good to differentiate symptomatic infections from asymptomatic ones, and to avoid data that are confounded by a normal background rate of infection. (E.g., giardia has a 3-7% prevalence in the US, and is almost always asymptomatic.)
Related questions on diseases acquired in the wilderness:
Why are people so worried about Giardia?
How do you avoid Norovirus on the AT?
This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/q/11467. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
1 answer
Numbers: You are asking the right questions.
From 30 years of running about 4 weeks of trips annually:
About 1 trip in 5 we would have an 'epidemic' of upset stomach and loose bowels. Usually this was attributed to poor dish washing. Adding a hotwater/bleach cycle to the daily routine eliminated the problem within 2-3 days. "Cup borrowing" was a significant factor in the spread.
In that same period, we have had occasional problems with what we later suspected was giardia. I figured this on any case of loose bowels that lasted longer than 5 days. Incidence -- Once every few years.
Notes; Group size was typically about 30 individuals.
Expeditions were evenly split between 3 week and 1 week.
1 week expeditions took place in the Canadian Rockies in Willmore Wilderness, or in Bigrock Clearwater Recreational Area.
3 week trips were by canoe in the Churchill River Watershed, but usually not on the main river.
No water purification was used.
This post was sourced from https://outdoors.stackexchange.com/a/11531. It is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
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