Mosquitos SUCK!!!

As a follow up to my last Blog which took a look at the funny side of me getting malaria I thought I'd take a more serious look at malaria so we remember the 1 million people a year who die from it.  For those of you wanting to get a nice case of malaria, maybe this can be used to help you out also.

Every traveler should have a basic knowledge of malaria and diseases prevalent in the areas in which they will be travelling. The easiest way to do this is to tell your doctor where you will be going. The doctor can access the CDC website and find out what kinds of shots you should get before you head out. This should be done well enough in advance so you don’t board the plane and then break out in an allergic reaction to the shot you just received. Also some shots need to be taken in a series so plan ahead.


On top of that you need to know that Malaria pills do not guarantee that you won’t get malaria, they only make it less likely. Also the malaria medicine has to be appropriate to the strain of malaria in the area in which you are going to travel. You can’t just use the pills from your last trip or barrow a friends left over pills unless you are going back to the same place.

All of this is pretty basic info – now I want to give you some facts on malaria that are not only shocking, but true. These facts and more can be found on the RBM website at www.rollbackmalaria.org

Only the facts…

• Malaria's transferred from person to person via a mosquito bite.

• Only female mosquitos transmit malaria. The female has whiskers.

• Not all female mosquito’s carry malaria.



• The vast majority of malaria deaths occur in Sub-Sahara Africa.

• Malaria costs Africa more than $12 Billion in lost GDP yearly.

• Malaria is responsible for over 1 million deaths a year.

• Malaria is Africa’s number one killer of children under five.

• Malaria kills an African child every 30 seconds.

• Malaria accounts for one in five of all childhood deaths in Africa.

• African children have 1.6 – 5.4 episodes of malaria per year.

• 40% of the world’s children live in malaria-endemic countries.

• Malaria causes poverty, poverty opens the door for malaria.



• Mosquito Nets can prevent a half million death per year.

• The cost of a treated mosquito net is about $1.70.

• The cost to re-treat a net for a year is about $0.60

FACT: For $2.00 you can buy a mosquito net for a child in Africa and reduce work and school loss and even save a life. So do something today. Go on line to your favorite charity and see if they have a mosquito net purchasing program. If they don’t, make a donation to Assist International at www.assistinternational.org and earmark it for mosquito nets.

The key to the casual traveler is to know the symptoms and check in with your doctor if you come down with any of them within 9–14 days of possible exposure to Malaria. Symptoms include fever, headache, vomiting and other flu like symptoms. Knowing this shouldn’t keep you from getting out there and living life.