Most of us know that malaria is a serious disease that is spread through mosquito bites. However, to make sure you take all the precautions necessary to prevent yourself from contracting it while you’re travelling, it is useful to know a bit more about malaria.
What makes malaria so dangerous?
Malaria is contracted after being bitten by a mosquito that carries a specific parasite. Once infected, malaria can make you very ill. Normally the illness presents with a high fever, vomiting and diarrhea, muscle pain and headaches, as well as feeling very tired.
Despite being both preventable and curable, malaria kills over 500,000 people every year. What’s more, malaria symptoms often take time to develop – ranging anywhere from a few weeks to up to a year after you’ve been infected.
This means you may not realise you’ve contracted malaria until after you return from your travels.
How can you prevent infection with malaria?
Depending on where you are planning to travel to, the advice around malaria prevention will either be limited to taking preventative actions – such as making sure you sleep under a mosquito net, use insect repellant and wear clothing that covers most of your skin when you’re out and about – or will involve a course of antimalarial drugs.
In areas with low risk of malaria infection, taking preventative action to avoid mosquito bites is usually sufficient. When you visit your travel health clinic in Royston our professionals will be able to advise you on whether this is what’s recommended for the destination you’re heading to.
For certain destinations, a course of antimalarial medication is strongly advised. This usually involves taking tablets every day that you’re away, as well as for a specified period of time before you travel and after your return.
What are the different antimalarial medications available?
There are various antimalarials that are approved for use as a prophylaxis (which simply means preventative measure). Which is most appropriate will depend on your personal circumstances as well as where you are travelling to.
Atovaquone with proguanil hydrochloride is often recommended for travellers because you only need to start taking it two days before you travel and you only need to continue taking it for a week after you leave the malaria-endemic area.
Other antimalarial drugs will need to be taken for longer before you travel (anywhere between one and three weeks depending on the medication) and continued for longer after your trip – usually four weeks.
Are there side effects of antimalarial medications?
As with any medications, you can suffer from side effects when you’re taking antimalarials. Your pharmacist will explain the most common side effects for the antimalarials you are recommended and will also tell you what to do should you experience any of them.
Of all the antimalarial medications currently available, atovaquone-proguanil (also called Malarone) causes side effects in patients less commonly than the others. Often the mild side effects of the drug will pass within a couple of days as your body adjusts to the medication.
With atovaquone-proguanil, this includes side effects like diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and headaches. However, for all that these side effects might be unpleasant, it is safer to take antimalarials than it is to contract malaria.