BootsnAll Travel Community

Question:
I am really curious as to what people do when they travel to places in regards to Malaria prevention. Which tactic do you most closely employee?

Choices:
Drugs: Larium and mefloquine - anything I can get my hands on
Prevention: DEET and I cover up at particular hours
Both: Drugs and Prevention methods
What's malaria?
Other - tell us below

 

I use citronella oil as a repellent. I cover up at the appropriate hours and I use mosquito coils in my bedroom.

DEET can melt plastic so I am not keen on putting on my delicate flesh!
Medicines may prevent Malaria, but are not guaranteed to do so and I don't fancy the side effects.

I believe a little care goes a long way...

I've taken the pills before when I was in the South Phillipines (Cloroquine) with no adverse affects, but I am sure they are toxic, as the info insert stated that 1 tablet WILL kill a small child if injested. I've decided not to take them anymore.

I've read up on DEET quite a bit, and I believe it is the best method of reducing the risk of malaria and dengue. I'm not afraid to use it even in high concentrations, for short periods of time. 3-M "ultrathon" works well, but there are others with higher concentrations of DEET that are supposed to be better. The studies I've seen show that DEET is the only thing that really works

Nicki McLean wrote an in depth article on this exact topic.

Malaria Article

I took Larium a few times and it was not that fun. Very vivid dreams and and overall bad feeling. I stopped taking it and just focused on prevention.

I don't like to take the medication as I believe it to be damaging to the kidneys. I focus on prevention, by covering up in the evenings, burning a coil, using a fan if available.

I have used a net before but its a pain if a mosquito gets stuck inside with me.

I prefer to use a sarong / lungi, which is a huge sheet that I can stretch over me to provide more protection.

I've used DEET on occassion but I can tell it is toxic stuff. If you ask most locals in places like Malaysia / Indonesia / Thailand what they do they'll usually say the same thing as me.

-Nick

I haven't traveled to malaria country for some time and when I did, Larium was still fairly new and not available in the US. I took Chloroquine with the emergency dose of Fansidar. I also used DEET, coils, and even slept inside our tent in a hotel room a couple of nites when window screens were suspect. With all that, one morning I discovered two Anopholes mosquitos (malaria carriers) inside the tent that had fed on us during the night. Neither of us got malaria, so maybe we were lucky.

Unfortunately, there isn't any preventative medication for dengue, so that's a cover up and repellent problem.

steve

since my sister saw mice crawling up and down the walls while taking lariam I choose an other (newer) option - malarone. compared to lariam it has lesser to none side effects. the advantage is also that you don't have to take pills for weeks. you start a day before entering, continue throughout staying and end 7 days after leaving the malaria area. the disadvantage is that it's developed for short stays in malaria areas like 5 to 10 days...

i've been advised to take colliquim (sp!!) and paladrim (sp!!! - this is embarrassing! i can't spell any of them - hope know what i mean!!!) for india and a couple of the other countries and then to take doxycyclin (sp!! - i'm bowing my head in shame at my spelling ignorance!) for vietnam and laos. i have to overlap my medicine taking and it all sounds quite daunting and complicated. i have had so much different advice from different medical 'experts'.
of course, i'll use mosquito spray (the most natural i can find...) and a net, but i do wanna take pills - i'm going alone and don't wanna get ill. larium is out of the question.
any advice or advice sources i can seek out in south uk?

I have never believed in the quinine/larium etc drugs available. when in malaria mossie infested places...(like my back yard while growing up!) i have always slapped on the deet or an equivalent and slept under a net and used coils. recently i have also carried 'fansidar'. very good drug which is used when symptoms become apparent. the three tablets enclosed give you about 72hours to get your butt to a doctor for proper medical care. the only problem is that it is not readily available from your friendly chemist without prescription. but never fear as it is probably available in the country you are heading over the counter.

Mosquitoes are mostly nocturnal feeders and like cool dark places, hence the jungle. Try to avoid wearing dark clothing at night.

Nick

Hmmmmmmm... saw a documentary a couple of years back about someone who had taken malaria pills, think it was called larium, and it really had hideous side effects... like paranoid delusion... It allegedly wrecked her mentally as well as physically. Is there a risk with ALL malaria pills then. I notice someone mentioned something about it being really tough on the kidneys.
I'm heading through Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in November/December... Would DEET be enough?! I don't want to take any chances!!!

Ta!
Cal

Hi

One method which is usually effective is to have a hot water bath with neem based soap (Margo is a popular brand) just before going off to sleep. Neem (leaves of a tree) do have medicinal properties and are very bitter in taste, i have found mosquites to be less of a menance by trying this.

In fact, whenever i have slept out in the open i have tried this. i also carry a bunch of dried neem leaves to hang in my tent. Effective.

I wish someone comes up with neem paste as a mosquito repellant! if you wish to patent this idea, remember u saw it here first.

In all seriousness I looooove garlic and if I eat lots of it it'll keep 'em at bay(and anything else for that matter).Garlic as you know comes out your pores and the mozzies don't go for italian food. Try it,it works for me and I'm a magnet.I'm always looking for natural defenses, don't care for the manufactured stuff unless I've already come down with something. Oh! And I've heard that they just love the color blue, anyone else hear this? ,Gabriel

my mum is the avon lady in our village and she reccommended that instead of 100% DEET that i normally take anywhere that i try one of her specials. the avon skin so soft range of body products in woodland fresh scent have been used by the british army training on the west coast os scotland. not a mararia hot spot, but still famous for the midges that can bite through steel to get you in the long summer evenings. i was sent off with a 'body oil spray' and found that her claim was true- not one bite.
now for a harder test. i spent one month in malawi this summer with the oil spray, soap and facial clensing wipes. i have to admit that i did get bitten, but only when the oil spray ran out. it was so successful everyone had to borrow some, there were no bites even trekking in the mountains or in the evenings by the lake.

1. Cover yourself from dusk til dawn
2. Use malaria-profylaxis if in a highrisk-area
3. If fever developes, search medical attention !!
Cerebral malaria can kill you in a few days!!

I´m a medical student, so I think I know what I´m talking about. There are, as you maybe already knew, different types of malaria. They all belong to the plasmodium-kind of parasites, but the most dangerous kind is Plasmodium FALCIPARUM
This is what gives you cerebral malaria, if you´re unlucky. The others doesn´t go with such a heavy parasitic load in the blood, and doesn´t cause any deaths.

Depending on which drug most widely used, RESISTANCE to that drug will eventually appear. This means that falciparum-malaria might be sensitive against Lariam in one area, but resistant in another.
To know which medication to use, I can recommend the WHO homepage. Always up to date when it comes to these topics.

SIDE-EFFECTS are as you all say rather common with this kind of medication.

Lariam is the most potent drug, but also the one with most side-effects. Common ones are strange dreams ( I kept dreaming that my thumb got cut off...). In some cases anxciety develops.

Malarone is the drug of choice if you can´t take Lariam by some reason. This is a new drug, very effective, but also very expensive. I´m gonna try it when I go to Tanzania after Christmas.

Chloroquine was the first drug on the market. It´s cheap, common side-effects are stomach-related ones. Children are more sensitive to it than grown ups. But that doesn´t say ANYTHING about the drugs toxicity. Children get irreversibel liverdamage if they eat aspirin. They are simply not as developed as grown ups!!!Initially all malaria was sensitive to chloroquine, but because of it´s wide usage, today almost all malaria is resistant to it.

Paludrine is a combination-drug, that is used together with Chloroquine. They potentiate each other. Works well in some areas. Rather non-toxic.

Quinine/Quinidine is the golden standard among TREATMENT used today, and recommended as such by WHO.

If Malaria is diagnosed in an early stage, prognosis is very good. Some of my friends who choose not to take profylaxis, always bring some Lariam with them. When they get fever they take 3 pills, and then seek medical attention. One of my friend got sick when he had returned from Africa to Sweden. He had falciparum-malaria, but was cured.

Hope this is helping some in there malaria-worries!

Regards,
truetraveller

this year is the first I've ever had to take antimalarials... and having heard about Larium, I wasn't keen... but luckily, much as some have said, there are different kinds of malaria, and so different types of pills recommended for different areas.

I was travelling through urban and rural areas between Bangkok and Ho Chi Minh...

Luckily I had some doctors doing this cycle challenge with me, otherwise I wouldn't have known that with doxycycline (mine was called By-Mycin)... you shouldn't take milk before you take the tablet. It works against it.

The leaflet told me not to lie down for a good 15 to 30 minutes after taking it... or taking it before I went to bed so that your digestion isn't slowed, and it doesn't cause you irritation of the throat or oesophagus.

You weren't supposed to break up the tablets, just swallow them and drink lots of water... but seeing as I have this inability to swallow tablets... I thought breaking them up was better than not taking them at all!!!

What it didn't tell me was to continue taking the drugs for 4 weeks after you leave your last malarial country. Your doctor should tell you these things, but wouldn't they be handy on the instructions as well!?!? I asked about it and was told that 4 weeks is the lifespan or gestation... whatever you'd like to call it, of malaria. I've just finished my course 2 days ago. Thank God.

Someone mentioned something about the critters loving blue?!? I don't know if you were messing or not, but I wore blue and turquoise, long and flowing clothes... and lashings and lashings of deet and the feckers had me for dinner every night!!!

Anyways... hope that helps someone.

Happy new year!!!

Cal xxx