On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 08:23:56 +1100, Alan S wrote:
>I'll be talking to my doc on medication prophylaxis, but any
>thoughts on that would also be appreciated.
Alan,
I read the excellent discussion of insect repellants. The other
topic got only a shorter exposure---malaria prophylaxis.
Some known drugs are Lariam, which is problematic because of
nasty side effects (I know, I once swallowed a cure dose), and
Malarone, which doesn't seem to have any side effects on me.
Malarone is twice as expensive though. I can recommend it.
The black horse is Doxycycline, which has already been described
very well in a preceding post. It is quite cheap, but, contrary
to Lariam and Malarone, cannot be used as a cure.
Another popular drug is artemisinine (from China), which is
effective as a cure, but not as a prophylactic.
For a short trip I recommend Malarone, but talk to your doctor
or to a specialist anyway. I don't actually have the medical
competence to recommend anything.
For your particular trip I would recommend to find out when and
for how long you will be in malaria-infested areas, as you don't
have to take phrophylactics outside these areas, apart from any
lead-in and lead-out periods before and after exposure. I would
not recommend to take Malarone or Lariam for a month or more.
In the case of long exposure you would have to look for other
alternatives like taking a malaria self test and a cure dose
with you and very carefully avoiding mosquito bites.
One final remark: Always sleep under a mosquito net, unless you
are absolutely certain that there are no mosquitos there. And
never listen to the locals, because when you ask them for
mosquitos, I found the answer invariably to be, "Yes, there are
mosquitos in this country, but not here."
Hans-Georg
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