We characterized posttravel hospitalizations of citizens returning to Israel by summarizing the returning traveler hospitalization dataset of the national referral Center for Travel Medicine and Tropical Diseases at Sheba Medical Center in Israel. Of 722 hospitalizations, 181 (25%) infections were life-threatening; most would have been preventable by chemoprophylaxis and pretravel vaccination.
Keywords: Africa; Asia; Caribbean; Central America; Ethiopia; India; Israel; Plasmodium falciparum; Plasmodium vivax; Salmonella enterica serovar Paratyphi; Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi; South America; Staphylococcus; Thailand; chemoprophylaxis; dengue; enteric infections; hepatitis; leishmaniasis; leptospirosis; life-threatening; malaria; posttravel hospitalization; prophylaxis; schistosomiasis; vaccination; vector-borne infections.