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<title>Travel Health: Useful medical information for good health before, during your trip and after</title>
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<h1>Travel Health: Useful medical information for good health before, during your trip and after</h1>

The 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.
&#183; TRAVELLER&#8217;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
-- &#8220;local meals&#8221; 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&#174;, Drinkwell chloor&#174;; available in sport
shops specialized in outdoor activities) or chlorine tablets
(Certisil Combina&#174;; chloramine tablets; available at the
pharmacy). Their effect can be improved by first filtering unclear
water. Silver salts (Micropur&#174;, Certisil Argento&#174;) 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&#174;) can greatly reduce the number of bowel movements,
with a considerable reduction of the complaints as a result.
Imodium&#174; 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&#8217;s prescription
&#183; 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.
&#183; 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
&#8211; the time between an infecting bite and the appearance of
the disease &#8211; 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:

<a target="_new" href="http://www.spain-holidays-advisor.com/vaccination.html">DISEASES
FOR WHICH VACCINATIONS ARE AVAILABLE</a>


<a target="_new" href="http://www.spain-holidays-advisor.com/more-travel-tips.html">MORE
TRAVEL HEALTH TIPS</a>

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.

<div>Author Info 
Eddy De Vos is the owner of 
<a href="http://www.spain-holidays-advisor.com/">http://www.spain-holidays-advisor.com/</a>,
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
</div>

Article Source: <a href="http://www.innoarticles.com" title="Your #1 Source For Quality Articles">InnoArticles.com</a>
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