Back to Search
Start Over
The enemy within: diarrheal rates among British and Australian troops in Iraq
- Source :
- Military medicine. 161(12)
- Publication Year :
- 1996
-
Abstract
- British and Australian medical teams working in Northern Iraq in 1991 providing primary care to refugees and the war wounded were subjected to a descriptive retrospective survey, 5 weeks after arriving in Iraq. The aim was to document different rates of diarrhea in British and Australian troops. The British, who were not taking daily doxycycline and did not enforce a plate- and hand-washing routine, experienced higher rates of diarrhea (69% of British troops compared with 36% of Australian troops), which was more severe and of a longer duration (p < 0.001) and resulted in twice as many days being lost (p < 0.001) in spite of the British team being half the size of the Australian contingent, and the region having enteropathogens with a high rate of antibiotic resistance. Vigorous hand- and plate-washing routines along with doxycycline prophylaxis appear to significantly reduce incapacitation from diarrhea in this military setting and have an important implication for operational effectiveness.
- Subjects :
- Grande bretagne
Diarrhea
medicine.medical_specialty
Warfare
Refugee
Primary care
Retrospective survey
medicine
Humans
Antibacterial agent
business.industry
Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
Australia
General Medicine
Adversary
United Kingdom
Surgery
Anti-Bacterial Agents
Military Personnel
Doxycycline
Operational effectiveness
medicine.symptom
business
Demography
Hand Disinfection
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 00264075
- Volume :
- 161
- Issue :
- 12
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Military medicine
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....d7dd9a1d014c1b9e5b833cd165910f27