热带医学的起源与发展趋势

热带医学(tropical medicine)是研究发生于热带或亚热带地区各种疾病的诊断、治疗、预防、控制和如何消灭这些疾病的一门综合性科学,主要由热带病学和热带卫生学两部分组成[1]。热带医学有着非常久远的历史,在19世纪末、20世纪初世界各国成立了专门的热带医学研究和教育的机构,热带医学

History and prospect of tropical medicine

Tropical medicine is a branch of medicine integrating preclinical medicine,clinical medicine and preventive medicine,and investigating the diagnosis,treatment and prevention of diseases in tropical and subtropical regions,including tropical disease and tropical hygiene.Since climate is not the main reason why those infections remain endemic in tropical areas,there is a trend towards renaming this speciality as "Geographic Medicine" or "Third World Medicine".The rapid development of technology provided the direction and momentum for the development of tropical medicine.At the same time,economic,environmental and social factors make the pathogen species variation,and infectious diseases become more complicated,prevention and treatment of tropical diseases have faced with new challenges in the future.From my point of view,the government should give more concerns and throw more money into the tropical medicine research and education.The new gene technology,geographic information system(GIS) and other advanced technology should be used in the diagnosis,treatment,surveillance and prevention of tropical medicine,so that people can face and control the new infectious diseases and emergent public health events.New vaccines and drugs should be developed for the prevention and treatment of new infection disease.