Cost of Anti-Malaria Medication!
 

Hi,
I am planning a RTW trip for next year and am of course concerned about malaria. As such a trip involves extended travel through malaria infected areas, e.g. 6months Central/S.America,9-12months Asia and 6-9months Africa. Is it going to cost an arm and a leg to obtain the necessary anti-malaria medication, or do I trust to luck and hope I don't attract the little buggers(mozzies that is!)? I've holidayed in Asia before and never been bitten so perhaps they don't like me, but is it worth the gamble?
Cheers Derek.

malaria is a killer. Not taking antimalarials imho is a stupid idea. not worth the gamble

If you speak nicely to your GP you may well end up with antimalarials on prescription. cost me £6.65 for 6 months of doxy.....

dan

Do some research. Anti-malarials have some nasty possible side-effects (including liver damage and psychotic behavior!), they're expensive - and anti-malarials do nothing to protect you from all the other diseases spread by mosquitos.

First, are you even going into areas that are known to have malaria? Unless you're hacking your way through jungle known to hae malaria-infested mosquitos, you'll be wasting money on anti-malarials - not to mention taking a chance on those side-effects.

IMHO If you are going into mosquito-prone areas, you're much better off spending your money on measures to prevent mosquito bites and ward off all mosquito-spread disease, not just malaria.

Like I said, do your own research and take a look at places like the CDC web-site. http://www.cdc.gov/travel/

i was in east africa for 6 weeks at then end of last year. was on droxy and took them every day without fail (man they give u weird dreams, but no probs beside that) used deet every nite aswell. only got bitten by a few mossies over the 6 weeks. and ended up with malaria. got pretty sick, but thought it was just fatigue and altitude sickness (climbing kilimanjaro). went down to the hospital (was due to fly out the mext day to london) had blood tests and they gave me antibiotics (cost bout US$15 for the drugs and tests). and all was good in bout a week. they told me that i would not have made it back to london, i was pretty lucky. the doc told me the drugs don't prevent you getting it they only prolong how long u can survive without treatment. so if u start feeling lethargic, aching muscles (i couldn't walk) unable to keep food down, the runs, headache etc... don't do what i did and just pass it off as tiredness/exhaustion, go to the docs.