Medical Prevention in the Tropics

There are some things in the tropics that always frighten people and catching some nasty tropical disease or being infested by a parasite is the big horror. I also have been worried very badly about travelling and working in remote places that have little in the way of medical treatment and have taken as many precautions as possible. The best things is prevention by vaccination for all preventable diseases, this can cover you for yellow fever, which can be a killer, last for 7 years and isn’t a big deal, hepatitis A & B, both easy and hep B is also a potential killer, but is hard to catch. I have also had a few of the vaccinations for minor infections, meningococcal A, a mild bacterial infection that can sometimes give you the brain type infection killing you, so I am now protected against that, I always get my booster for Tetanus and diphtheria which come together. I have had the typhoid but been told it isn’t very effective. I requested the Rabies vaccination as I handle bats here in Peru and there is always a potential for the bats to be carriers, it is a small chance but people do die from Rabies frequently in the third world from being unprotected and here in the south American tropics there are vampire bats that can and do transmit rabies, not deliberately but as a consequence of the lifestyle of drinking blood that is infected. Pity it cannot be eliminated, bats can be vaccinated against rabies, in fact rabies is detected in bats in the UK and Europe and there is now an ongoing vaccination debate to help protect the remaining bats from catching it and passing it on amongst the bat world. These are the things that you can protect yourself from but parasite infection is something you cannot protect yourself against, the most critical one here is Malaria. We are lucky that it is non-existent here in this camp but back in Malabo from onset of fever to death can be less than 24 hours and people did die and usually it was the guys from India, they would say, “we have malaria back in India and I get over it east”, but they forget that there are 4 strains that can make you ill and the Malabo strain causes blood clots in the small capillaries of the brain and kills you very quickly. So they were dieing one a week at one point. There are intestinal parasites that are worms and usually that is from infected meat, here we are Ok as the food is top class, then there are intestinal protozoan which can be very nasty, this is what I caught in Turkmenistan and it makes you feel like shit and you do lose lots of weight but it isn’t nice. I had it for 8 weeks until I was finally diagnosed and treated with the correct anti-biotic. There are parasitic worms that can eat away your skin and these are bad but easily treated if caught soon enough. Also fungal infections can be terrible here in the tropics which can eat away your flesh and be very nasty not your typical athlete’s foot. Finally there are insect parasites that can lay eggs in you and here and in Costa Rica we have the bot fly that lays its eggs in a mosquito bite and the larvae grows in your flesh until it is full size then emerges to become a fly, very horror movie stuff, the picture says it all. So I am as careful as I can be my arm is still aching from the booster for tetanus I had 3 days ago which prompted me to write this Blog about protecting yourself best you can while in the tropics.
Bot Fly Larvae, yikes!!


Quite common ringworm, most kids get this


Elephantitis and this can effect the penis and scrotum just as badly as the legs