Holiday Complaints and Holiday Illness Glossary
HolidayTravelWatch have compiled a list of the most common holiday illnesses, holiday diseases and those terms that apply to holiday complaints. We regularly add to this glossary, but we welcome any additions that you feel may help our site visitors. Please contact us if you wish to add to the glossary.
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31. Enteroinvasive Escherichia Coli
Enteroinvasive Escherichia coli produce bloody diarrhoea and are spread by poor hygiene. The organism invades enterocytes, leading to inflammatory diarrhoea: spread to the bloodstream can occur. These pathogens lead to sporadic outbreaks in babies and young children.
32. Enterotoxigenic Escherichia Coli
Enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) is mainly water-borne. It is one of the causes of travellers’ diarrhoea, which is watery and copious and results from an enterotoxin acting on the secretory mechanisms in the gut. The disease can last for up to two weeks.
33. Exclusion Clauses (Contract Law)
This is where changes to the contract or a limitation to the one party’s liability is limited by an express term in the contract. Such clauses are controlled and limited by the law or the courts.
34. Frustration (Contract Law)
Where something happens in the contract, which is not the fault of either party, and that act makes the performance of the contract impossible, illegal or different from what was intended, then both parties may be excused from the contract.
35. Giardia
Giardia are a group of flagellate protozoans (single-celled, microscopic parasites) which grow in the intestines of infected humans or animals. Giardia cause diarrhoeal disease in humans. The disease can be transmitted by direct contact with infected animals or humans, or by consumption of water, food or beverages contaminated by the faeces of infected animals or humans. People may also be infected by swimming in contaminated water (for example in lakes or rivers). The disease has a long incubation period of 5–25 days. Transmission is from person-to-person and there is little food-borne transmission, although water is a possible source of infection.
36. Helicobacter Pylori
Helicobacter pylori is a spiral shaped bacterium. It lives on the gastric epithelium under the mucus layer of the stomach and duodenum. The bacterium is thought to damage this mucus layer, which is the stomach and duodenum's natural protection from gastric acids. Local inflammation caused by the bacterial infection and exposure to these acids can damage the lining of the stomach and duodenum, eventually leading to ulceration and possibly gastric cancer.
37. Hepatitis A
Hepatitis A virus infection causes a range of illness from mild through non specific nausea and vomiting through to hepatitis (liver inflammation, jaundice, or icterus) and rarely liver failure. Symptoms and severity of the illness are generally worse the older the person is when they become infected. Hepatitis A virus was a common childhood infection in the early 20th Century but now in the 21st century it is an unusual infection in the UK. It is normally spread by the faecal-oral route but can also be spread occasionally through blood. Infection is prevented by good hygiene, especially hand washing, safe drinking water and food. Vaccination, passive or active, can be used to prevent groups at high risk including people who have been in contact with someone else who has the infection, travellers to countries where the infection is common, and other groups such as injecting drug users.
38. Hepatitis E
Hepatitis means inflammation of the liver. The most common causes of hepatitis are viral infections, such as Hepatitis E virus (HEV). HEV is a non-enveloped spherical RNA virus that is classified as a Hepevirus. Hepatitis E was first recognised as a distinct human disease in the 1980s. HEV is transmitted by the faecal-oral route and is common in Asia, Africa and Central America, particularly where sanitation is poor. HEV usually produces mild disease but in rare cases it can prove fatal, particularly in pregnant women.
39. Illegality (Contract Law)
40. Illegality (Contract Law)
Contracts that cause someone to do something illegal will not be enforced by the courts.
41. Implied Terms (Contract Law)
Where the parties do not express a particular term in a contract, it can be implied into the contract (eg. The Package Travel Regulations)
42. Injunction (Contract Law)
This is a court order which restrains a person from doing a particular thing.
43. Intention to Create Legal Relations (Contract Law)
In order for an agreement to be enforceable, each party must intend that it be legally binding on the other.
44. Invitation to Treat (Contract Law)
This is not an offer. This is an expression by someone that they are willing to enter to enter into a negotiation with the potential other party to a contract (eg. A brochure)
45. Japanese Encephalitis
Japanese encephalitis (JE) is the most important cause of viral encephalitis in Asia. It is caused by a flavivirus and is transmitted by mosquitoes. The World Health Organization estimates that there are approximately 50,000 cases of clinical disease per year with 10,000 deaths, mainly in children. It is endemic in wet, rural areas, but can also occur in urban areas. Areas that are particularly risky are rice fields where mosquitoes thrive and where there is a lot of pig farming. Pigs and wading birds are the predominant hosts for this virus. Japanese encephalitis tends to be seasonal and cases occur mainly through the wet season.
HTW has noted that amongst the submissions to the Committee on Toxicity (COT) it has been suggested that the symptoms highlighted by crew and passengers were akin to the condition of hyperventilation.
HTW has for many years received reports from concerned holiday makers or independent travellers as to the safety of their aircraft, ship or boat, train or road transport.
