Archive for November 30, 2008
Travel Health: Useful medical information for good health before your departure, during your trip an
November 30, 2008, 11:39 amThe 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.
- 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:
DISEASES FOR WHICH VACCINATIONS ARE AVAILABLE
MORE TRAVEL HEALTH TIPS
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.
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(posted in the Hall Of Travel category)
Things to see on your next Torrevieja and Alicante holiday
November 30, 2008, 5:52 amTorrevieja is one of the most important summer holiday spots in
the province of Alicante, about 50 kilometres from the city of
Alicante and making
up what is known as the Costa Blanca or The White Coast.
Torrevieja and the town of Pilar de la Horadada are in the
southern tip, the last towns before you head into the province
of Murcia. When making holiday plans, if you are to arrive there
by plane, the closest airport would be the one in Alicante
called the Altet. It has great flight combinations with the rest
of Europe, especially when flying in from England. It would only
take you about half an hour at the most to get safely to your
hotel if you have thought about a car hire. Look for the highway
marked N-332 heading south and you are set. There are some bus
companies connecting Torrevieja with Alicante, Elche, Murcia and
other towns and cities. There are even hotels which have the
convenient service of picking up its guests. And if you are in a
hurry or do not want to be bothered driving and wish to take in
the lovely scenery, then a taxi would do you well.
Salt and Habaneras from Torrevieja
In order to give directions, everyone referred to this town as
where the old tower is and therefore in Spanish – Torrevieja
a>, which when translated to English means ‘ an old
tower’. This swampy marsh area has been known for its high
quality production of salt and one of the places frquently used
to store the dried salt was in towers. There was one particular
tower which was knocked down when this area was hit by an
earthquake in 1829. Even nowadays, this whole area is constantly
being shaken by earthquakes, one of the last ones was just a few
months ago. Although it is visited thanks to its beautiful
beaches such as the Cura, the Locos or the Mata, it is also
visited because it has become popular for its habaneras, Cuban
music. One might think that it is quite strange that such far
away music has planted its roots so strongly in a little salt
mining town in Spain. But there is a very reasonable
explanation. Torrevieja carried on a constant flow of salt
trading with Cuba and the sailors who did this route were
spellbound by this lively music and wanted to share it with
their home folks and brought it back here. As we can well see,
its has been happily transmitted from one generation to another.
There is a fantastic international music festival of habaneras
held annually at the end of July or the beginning of August. If
you are in the area at this time of the year and wish further
details, the Patronizer of the Competition ( Patronato Municipal
del Certamen International de Habaneras ) can help you or look
in the web.
Natural Parks to visit
When you leave Torrevieja on the highway marked C-332, you will
be heading for the Natural park of the Lagoons of the Mata. To
be sure you will be able to visit this paradise correctly, it
would be recommendable to get information and book a date
because there is a maximum of 35 people allowed at a time. The
most interesting fauna are the birds like the stone curlew and
in the winter there is a great concentration of the diving birds
and important nucleus of storks, eagles and and avocets. On the
other hand, the salt swamps export salt all over the world. And
if that was not enough, salt baths are also recommended for some
types of illnesses such as arthritis and skin diseases having
become quite popular in the 19th century. But the best part of
this excursion is when the sun reflects in these salt
mountains.
Even though this city has a lot to do, it is easy and fun to
make day excursion travelling up the Costa Blanca to visit Santa
Pola on the outskirts of Alicante, then on to Benidorm
with its fantastic theme parks of all kinds, Altea and Javea.
Get the most out of your stay and travel.
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(posted in the Hall Of Travel category)
Travelling Overseas – Staying Healthy
November 30, 2008, 5:26 amEvery year, millions of people visit developing countries. Of these, many are business people looking for new opportunities.
With a myriad of development potential available in the Asian region, business people are flocking overseas in order to get in at the ground floor. Many travel to these regions on a regular basis, exposing themselves to diseases ranging from differing strains of hepatitis to typhoid and polio.
Unfortunately, many of these diseases are not discriminating – they can be caught even when staying in 5-star accommodation. Also, some of them require long convalescent periods. For example, hepatitis A can mean an absence from work of up to 8 weeks, depending on the severity of the attack.
The problem facing business people and travellers is that often they have not been exposed to a wide range of infections. This means they have little or no natural immunity to diseases common in other parts of the world.
For example, even when staying at resort-standard hotels in areas such as Taiwan, the traveller still has a 1 in 300 chance of developing hepatitis A. Budget travellers increase their risk by as many as six times.
The sensible solution is to make sure you receive the recommended vaccinations for any overseas country you visit. It is important, however, to realize that for many vaccines to be totally effective, a series of doses over an extended period of time are required. For example, hepatitis B vaccines usually require a couple of months before they reach their full effectiveness.
Vaccination is not the only precaution that should be taken when travelling in a developed country. Many diseases are transmitted through food which has been handled by a carrier of the disease. This means that uncooked vegetables, salads, raw meat, shellfish, and drinks made with water or ice are all potential health hazards, and should be approached with caution.
Other things that should be observed are the general cleanliness of the restaurant or food preparation area. A restaurant with no electricity, meat covered in flies hanging on hooks and perhaps a few stray animals wandering around is hardly likely to be a good risk!
There are also the risks that can be avoided much more easily. These include casual sexual contact, intravenous drug use and other skin piercing activities such as tattooing and ear-piercing.
It is also important that you mention to your doctor that you have been travelling overseas to developed countries if you develop any symptoms such as nausea, lethargy, fever or jaundice after your return. These can often be categorised as a flu or common virus, when in fact they may be symptoms of a hepatitis infection. With full travel details, the doctor will be more able to make a correct diagnosis and suggest necessary further testing.
With almost all health issues, the key to disease free overseas travel is common sense. If you are going to be visiting a developing area, take the time to ensure you receive the necessary vaccinations in plenty of time for your trip. After all, that small amount of forethought may prevent a great deal of trouble later on. Copyright Felicity Walker 2005
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(posted in the Hall Of Travel category)
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