Simon Calder: Travelling overseas can be a cure, not a curse

The World Health Organisation does travellers some favours by monitoring diseases and co-ordinating action, but its latest study needs a health warning attached.

Just as travel journalists have a vested interest in people going abroad, the WHO is a body whose business is identifying health problems. So no one should be amazed that its surgical-gloved finger is pointing accusingly at the travel industry.

Much of the report can be summed up thus: take a psychologically fragile individual, put them in unfamiliar circumstances and there is a chance they may snap. That applies whether they are at Butlins in Bognor or in the tail end of Thailand, although the process of treatment and recovery is made more complicated if a British traveller breaks down in South-east Asia rather than West Sussex.

To single out pilgrims as particularly prone to mental disturbance is, if you will excuse the phrase, health and safety gone mad. People walk, ride or fly to Jerusalem, Mecca or Santiago hoping to be overwhelmed by emotion, not fearing an excess of fervour.

Other people are passionate about mind-expanding substances rather than mind-broadening experiences. But the easy availability of illicit drugs in Amsterdam, or cheap alcohol in Spain, is hardly a reason to shun the Dutch capital or the Costas. As with any health issue, prevention is far better than cure.

Someone who suffers from "phobia of flying" or "panic attacks" can steer clear of air travel. If you are worried about the effects of anti-malarial drugs, plenty of locations are free of the disease.

My personal theory of how this report was conceived is this: the World Health Organisation just happens to be located adjacent to Europe's most maddening transport terminal, the curiously inefficient and disorganised Geneva airport in Switzerland. Perhaps they should get away more.

Even for those of us perennially consigned to Ryanair, undergoing an indignity or two at the airport is a small price to pay for the chance of temporary, blissful escape from our often stressful daily lives. Travel is a cure, not a curse.