Travel MD: Extra care for health

By JOAN INGRAM

Many travellers think that a few shots from their doctor and malaria tablets if necessary will protect them on their travels.

Vaccines or tablets cannot prevent many travel-related health problems. What you do while travelling makes a big difference. Six words beginning with "I" summarise the general advice I give to travellers. They are: Insurance: Don't leave New Zealand without health insurance. It may well be the most important expenditure of your trip.

Insects: Avoid bites from insects, which often carry disease. Use repellent containing Deet, permethrin-treated bed-nets, screens and sprays.

Ingestion: Be careful what you eat and drink. Follow the adage - boil it, peel it or forget it.

Indiscretions: All countries have HIV/Aids so avoid casual sex. If you do, always use a condom.

Injury: Be careful swimming, and travelling in vehicles. Crossing the road in foreign places needs care. It's easy for pedestrians to be caught unawares in countries where they drive on the right-hand side of the road.

Immersion: Do not swim in fresh water in Africa or the Middle East because of the risk of schistosomiasis, sometimes called bilharzia.

It is a parasitic disease caused by a tiny worm that will slip into your skin without you knowing until perhaps several months later you get stomach pains and blood in your urine. Wading across streams is just as risky.

If you remember these things as well as your vaccinations and malaria prevention tablets, you are more likely to keep well and enjoy your trip to the maximum.