Travel Health: Useful medical information for good health while travelling
he diseases most commonly seen in travellers are diarrhoea, malaria
(if you travel in a malaria-infested area),
accidents (when travelling by car or swimming), wound infections and
sexually transmitted diseases.
In this article we will go over some preventive measures so nothing
will disturb your holiday pleasure.
-- Diarrhoea is caused by contaminated food and drinking-water. You
must therefore be careful if your are travelling in poor hygiene
conditions.
-- Malaria is transmitted by mosquitoes, so the first thing to do is
to protect yourself against these mosquitoes.
-- In order to prevent accidents during travelling, it is wise to
apply the same precautions as those taken at home.
In addition, it is very important that all wounds should be
thoroughly disinfected in order to avoid infection.
· TRAVELLER'S DIARRHOEA
Many intestinal infections are attributable to infections picked up
by mouth or hands. With a little care most of
these illnesses can be prevented. Hepatitis A, typhoid fever, polio
and cholera still occur in countries with poor
hygiene, but these diseases are easily prevented.
However, the chance is rather large that you will still contract a
light and/or nondangerous form of traveller's diarrhoea.
Traveller's diarrhoea almost always spontaneously clears up after a
few days, but can nevertheless be irritating.
And a risk to your overall and travel health.
In the first place measures must be taken against dehydration.
Likewise, treatment of the symptoms must be considered
in order to reduce the number of bowel movements and relieve other
symptoms such as fever, vomiting and stomach cramps.
Sometimes a more serious form of diarrhoea occurs, for which specific
treatment with antibiotics is indicated or where
hospitalisation or fluid replacement appears unavoidable.
It takes only a few basic preventive measures to make your trip a
success : Total prevention of traveller's diarrhoea is
impossible and it is obvious that preventive measures can seldom be
strictly followed at all times.
But following preventive measures do significantly reduce the risk of
contracting serious diarrhoea:
In order to maintain good travel health wash your hands before eating
and avoid (if possible) :
-- raw vegetables and fruits that you have not peeled yourself
-- uncooked or unpasteurized dairy products
-- insufficiently cooked sea foods (+ Hepatitis A !) and meat
-- "local meals" which do not smell fresh
-- ice-cream bought from street merchants (industrial ice straight
from the deep-freeze is probably safe).
Cooked meals should be served hot. The place where you eat is also
important. A meal taken from a stall presents a
greater risk than a meal taken in a restaurant. Avoid restaurants
where there are a lot of insects.
Avoid tap water and ice-cubes. Bottled water and soft drinks are
safe. Watch out for bottle caps that have already been used.
It is very important to disinfect drinking-water on adventure trips.
Total sterilisation of drinking water is impossible.
The following measures considerably reduce the contamination risk and
safeguard your travel health:
-- Boiling the water is very effective.
-- A good alternative is chemical disinfection with chlorine drops
(e.g. Hadex®, Drinkwell chloor®; available in sport shops
specialized in outdoor activities) or chlorine tablets (Certisil
Combina®; chloramine tablets; available at the
pharmacy). Their effect can be improved by first filtering unclear
water. Silver salts (Micropur®, Certisil Argento®) are
not very suitable to disinfect water, but they keep disinfected water
germ-free for a long time.
For adventurous travellers conscious to travel health it is best to
buy a portable water-filter. The use of antibiotics
in order to prevent diarrhoea before it occurs can be dangerous +
Also the use of other preventive medications is not
recommended.
. How to treat diarrhoea?
It is extremely important to consume sufficient liquid and salt in
order to prevent dehydration. You can do this by
taking salt solutions, but tea with lemon, broth, soft drinks and
fruit juice, supplemented with salt crackers are tastier.
Commercial salt products are available on the market (ORS-solution).
Taking an anti-diarrhoea preparation (loperamide, e.g. Imodium®) can
greatly reduce the number of bowel movements, with
a considerable reduction of the complaints as a result. Imodium® may
only be used by adults and older children and only
for treating ordinary watery diarrhoea: 1 capsule after every loose
movement up to a maximum of 4 per day.
Antibiotics are indicated :
1. If blood, mucus or pus are present in the stools.
2. If after 24 to 48 hours, there is no sign of improvement and the
diarrhoea is accompanied by fever (above 38.5 C) or
severe abdominal cramps, or if there are more than six stools per 24
hours and especially when these also occur
at night.
3. Or if because of travel circumstances a quicker solution is
absolutely desirable . Appropriate antibiotics are only
to be used on doctor's prescription
· SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED DISEASES
Casual sexual contacts tend to be higher while on holiday abroad.
Sexually transmitted diseases, particularly AIDS, form
therefore an important risk for travellers.
Quite often unintentional and unsafe sexual contact takes place under
alcohol influence.
Prevention while on holiday abroad is no different from the
precautions you take at home. Adequate use of a condom,
preferably bought at home, is absolutely essential. Only a water- soluble lubricant should be used, but it only offers
a partial guarantee (e.g. KY gel).
Vaccination against hepatitis B is advised. Always consult your
doctor if you think you are at risk, even when there are
no symptoms.
· MALARIA (swamp fever, malaria)
Malaria is an infectious disease caused by a parasite (called
Plasmodium) transmitted by the bite of the Anopheles mosquito.
There are four different types of which Malaria falciparum is the
most dangerous and the most widespread.
The incubation period - the time between an infecting bite and the
appearance of the disease - varies from ten days to four
weeks (rarely several months).
The symptoms include attacks of fever, but can initially be quite
similar to influenza.
If adequate treatment is not started in time, an attack may sometimes
result in death within a few days.
. Where does malaria occur?
Malaria only occurs in those areas in which Anopheles mosquitoes are
present : in the tropics and in a large number of
subtropical areas. From a height of 1.500 to 2.500 m onwards,
depending on temperature and climate, Anopheles mosquitoes
are either rare or non-existent.
In most big cities there is little or no risk at all of infection,
except in Africa where a real risk exists.
Risk also exists in the suburbs of the big cities in Asia (e.g. in
India). In a number of areas the risk varies according
to the season.
. How can malaria be prevented?
It is very important for travel health to avoid mosquito bites : the
Anopheles mosquito only bites between dusk and dawn,
is rather small and hardly makes any noise.
-- In the evening wear light-coloured clothing which covers your arms
and legs as much as possible. Apply repellent cream
with a DEET basis (20 to 50%, for children and pregnant women
preferably 20 to 30%) to the uncovered parts of your body.
Repeat this every four to six hours (it will not protect you all
night).
Non containing DEET repellents were less examined; Autan-Active and
Mosegor are however excellent safe products.
-- Sleep in rooms that leave no access to mosquitoes, (mosquito nets
on the sills, electrically-warmed anti-mosquito plates,
air-conditioning) or sleep under a mosquito net impregnated with
permethrine or deltamethrine hung over the bed with the
edges tucked under the mattress.
If these measures are carried out correctly, the risk of malaria will
be reduced by 80 to 90% and travel health is maintained
. The intake of pills as prevention
There is no drug efficient enough to prevent malaria 100%, which
means that quite often a combination of measures is
preferable. Also the drugs used have changed over the years.
Moreover, the advantages and disadvantages of drugs should be
considered against the risk of malaria infection.
These risks are dependent on the visited country, and on the region,
the season, the duration of your stay and the kind
of trip.
Some people might be troubled by the side effects while taking
antimalarial drugs. These are usually mild and are not
always a reason to stop taking the pills. Sometimes it may be
necessary to change to another type of medication due to
intestinal problems, allergic reactions or other intolerance
symptoms.
Therefore it is the doctor who can best decide for each individual
which drug to use. This explains why individuals from
the same group may end up taking different drugs.
Finally, as no drug is 100% effective in preventing malaria, it is
important that if an attack of fever occurs in the
first three months after your return from the tropics, a malaria
infection should be considered as a possibility despite
the correct use of the drug prescribed.
However, it is reassuring to know that malaria, provided it is
recognised in time, is easy to treat without any danger of
recurrent attacks. The belief that "once malaria always malaria" is
totally untrue.
You can find even more travel health tips in the next pages:
http://www.spain-holidays-advisor.com/vaccination.html
http://www.spain-holidays-advisor.com/more-travel-tips.html
CAUTION: The information provided here should not be used during any
medical emergency or for the diagnosis or for the
treatment of any medical condition. A licensed physician should be
consulted for any and all medical conditions.
Call 911 for all medical emergencies.
Eddy De Vos is the owner of http://www.spain-holidays- advisor.com/,a website about travel and Spain. It contains usefull
tips for your next trip, be it to Spain or anywhere else in the world. Of course if you are planning a trip to Spain there is no better
place to start than Spain Holidays
Eddy De Vos is the owner of http://www.spain-holidays- advisor.com/,a website about travel and Spain. It contains usefull
tips for your next trip, be it to Spain or anywhere else in the world. Of course if you are planning a trip to Spain there is no better
place to start than Spain Holidays
Contact him at http://www.spain-holidays.com
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