The travel bug is an easy one to catch: spread through direct contact with fellow sojourners and their tales of wild adventure. Yet it’s the far more rare illnesses — Ebola, swine flu, bird flu and SARS — that dominate news headlines and get people panicking about health and safety on the road. Learn how you can take proactive steps to stay healthy and safe on the road. By Rebekah Funk
Keeping well on a trip should begin long before boarding a plane, says Dr Peter Vincent, Netcare Travel Clinics’ medical advisor. He advises travellers with chronic medical conditions to visit their family doctor about six weeks prior to a trip, to ensure their health is stable and prescriptions are up to date.
While it’s important for travellers to know the risks, our health experts say it’s equally important not to get sucked in by the hype. “There is no reason to panic about health risks when travelling. Just stick to the basics for a healthy, disease-free and wonderful trip,” reasons, Mike Schepers from travel healthcare clinic TraVac.
If you’re planning an active holiday, start improving your fitness level weeks ahead, he adds, especially if there’s going to be a change in altitude or terrain.
Most illnesses are avoidable, provided you know what to avoid and how. Vincent recommends visiting a travel clinic to find out: “Counselling leads to awareness and behaviour changes that will keep a traveller safe. You’ll know that fresh water exposure in Africa can lead to bilharzia, that staying away from chicken farms and meat markets in the East decreases the chance of contracting bird flu, and so on.”
Also do some online research to educate yourself about potential risks in areas you’ll be visiting. Just be sure to consult trusted travel health sources such as the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or World Health Organisation (WHO), rather than questionable sites, adds Vincent.
Creating a basic first aid kit is a crucial part of packing for a trip, says Vincent. The kit should include adhesive bandages, tweezers, alcohol swabs and medications, including remedies for headaches, constipation or diarrhoea. An all-purpose antibiotic can also be helpful in combatting respiratory illnesses and halting the onset of pesky infections.
Vaccines are the travel precaution Schepers and Vincent stress most adamantly. In some cases, travellers can be barred from entering a country if they lack proper documentation for yellow fever and other inoculations. Vincent also recommends getting the yearly flu shot; in his experience that’s what most often “takes out” travellers.
“Steer clear of others bodily fluids and direct exposure to other people's blood. Simple and easy,” says Schepers of a long-standing health rule that’s become even more important following outbreaks of Ebola in West Africa in years past. The same no-touching rules apply to animals, he says, regardless of how cute they might look.
Mosquitos are one of the world’s deadliest animal killers, carrying malaria, Dengue fever, West Nile virus and other illnesses. Vincent advises travellers to see the tiny buzzing annoyances as a very real threat.
Simmy Micheli, Sales and Marketing Manager for Travel Insurance Consultants (TIC), couldn’t agree more. She points out that malaria continues to “dominate African travel risks”. That’s no exaggeration when you consider the statistics: there are around 200 million cases of malaria reported worldwide each year and an estimated 620 000 deaths from the illness — mostly in Africa.
Fortunately malaria is preventable. If you’re travelling to a malaria area, Vincent recommends anti-malarial medications as well as covering up with light-coloured clothing at dawn and dusk, and packing plenty of insect repellent — just make sure to purchase the right one. “Laboratory studies have shown DEET-based lotions keep mosquitoes at bay for 300 minutes. Citronella based lotions give protection for 20 minutes before reapplication is required and wrist bands offer zero protection,” he says.
Travel insurance is crucially important to have in case something goes wrong. It’s equally important to read the fine print, says Micheli, especially when it comes to rare tropical diseases.
Many insurance companies will not cover an illness, disease or virus if it’s contracted in a country for which the WHO has issued a health warning. Some companies will only cover medical expenses for malaria, for example, if travellers have taken the proper precautions and anti-malarial drugs to guard against infection.
Micheli recommends checking with the individual insurer if there are any doubts about coverage.
The rest comes down to common sense, Vincent reckons: keep hands clean and sanitised, avoid touching door knobs and handrails, wear sunscreen and a hat and keep hydrated with bottled water in areas where purification standards are questionable — sparkling is best for drinking and brushing teeth since it’s unlikely to have been tampered with.
