Mosquito Season??

Nick-H

I would like to know if this means of mossie control has ever been used in India.... COCONUTS AGAINST MALARIA

Sounds perfect to me, especially in this part of the country where coconuts are plentiful.

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nevad

Hey UberBone,

I am happy that you will try to be careful with getting bitten by mosquitos in India. I always used mosquito repellent when I have been in India, and covered up during night. Even though, I don't think I have experienced a day in India not having at least one mosquito bite (also during winter).

You will arrive India in the end of the monsoon season. (Depending a bit on where you are going). The chance of getting malaria is greatest during monsoon and right after the monsoon. Have you considered taking anti-malaria pills for, let's say, the first month of your stay only? If not, I would have done that. I don't really like taking pills either, but I would have been careful right after the monsoon. Just my piece of advice.

Have a safe and good trip to and in India.

Nick-H

...Mmmm, that makes sense.

And six months may seem like a long time, but it is a mere fragment of a lifetime.

UberBone

it does make sense, i may consider that, especially as you point out I'll be arriving at a particularly bad time.

guidedeba

If you love the country and of course if you are a caring one for the future mankind especially the people from those countries where the Malaria and other diseases are kind of Epidemic (???). I would ask you not use the profylexis. Because according to the latest Suvey done by WHO the Profylexis doesn't help at all. In fact the does just the opposite thing. The antimalarial is only available for the Malaria which attacks the spleen and not the brain. And FYI nowadays in these countries we are getting the Malaria mostly that brain kind. So there is no chance of stopping that kind of Malaria taking the drug beforehand. Now comes the topping.... once you start taking the antimalarial drugs the symptoms of getting the malaria is suppressed. And it gets quite difficult even for the docotors of these countries (where they get Malaria regularly) difficult. and I have the proof of people getting Malaria by the people getting Malaria even after 6 months or, 9 months of getting back to their home country. And it was reallydifficult for the doctors of those countries to knwo what kind of diseases they are sufering from (only after they revealed that they traveled to Indonesia the doctor did the parasite test to find the attack). Now comes the point : why I asked you that whether You like our country? The WHO research also revealed that the mosquitoes of these countries hav changed their gene to adapt with the normal antimalarial drugs and getting more resistant to the anti malarial medicine and therapy. So the normal know medicines are no more of use to treat the Malaria. You can contact the Indian Medical Association to justify my passage.
Now I like to advise you; which I generally suggest to all my tourist. Just keep the ANtimalarial Pills in your bag. Like the "Malarid" and get a written instruction from your doc. It is quite easy to know in India that whether you got the malaria , or not. and then start your drug. because the quinin is not so nice to body if taken for prolonged period (I had a blocked nose and breathing trouble for some 3 months). And that is also if you get the normal Malaria. But if you get the Cerebral one youhave to visit the doctor. Just keep in mind if you have a high fever after / within one week - 2 weeks with shivering after visitng any malaria infected place just don't forget to tell the doctor that you were visitng an area with malaria and get the blood test. he will know what to do. Moreover in the Nrthern India once you are above the swampy / plains (where the water gets stagnant) you are kind of free from the malarial mosquitoes. It is said that the Malarial Mos quitoes bites from 12 night till 04:00 hours. ( YOU can add 2 hours extra on both sides). And lastly I would like to add some truth of the statistics. : I am from Kolkata. which is know as one of the most vulnerable places in India for mosquitoes having malaria. In Kolkata if someone gets Malaria and get to the hospital it comes in the Newpaper. And as an avid reader of the Newspaper I never found that small news more than two days a week. I asked my wife ( she is a doctor in the Medical college)how many get admitted in the hospital.she told max 20 in a WEEK. Now taking the population of Kolkata (12.5 million). I think it will be rude to blame all the mosqitoes as the malarial one. And last but not the least. In my family & friends so far in my knowledge 'My fatehr got malaria when he was 21 yrs. old (some 65 yrs. back.) My brother-in-law's brother got it 29 yrs. back. My rock climber friend got it 6 yrs. back ( he was in the forest in some area to climb where the real threat of malaria exsist).
I think you all getting bored with this post by now. Just to confirm you.. Ihandle a Swiss docotors group. which comes to various parts of India. after I gave this accounts to them they never took the pills (they bring the remedies with them) and still now nobody had Malaria. (And surprisingly I too never had Malaria).

Nick-H

Well, after claiming that occurances of malaria are rare in your city, you go on to list three people close to you who have caught the disease. And you talk of people discovering that they have malaria months after getting home. Rare?

I think you are very confused. For a start, it is not the mosquitoes who are changing their genetics, it is the malaria parasite. That is very old news. I really cannot imagine that the tiny percentage of tourists in india could have any marked effect on this resistance

It is very easy to diagnose malaria: by a blood test. It is very hard to diagnose it any other way, as its symptoms are very general: I once heard a doctor say that the only symptom you could be sure was not caused by malaria was --- pregnancy!

If you have a link to a WHO article advising against antimalarials then we should be interested to see it, please.

I'm no expert --- but I'm not, so far, terribly impressed with your expertise either.

I am not usually so blunt, but, to be honest, I find your advice very dangerous, and completely at odds with any that I have every heard of being given my a medical practitioner, including my own resident Indian doctor.

PeakXV

Hello guidedeba. Interesting post. If you have the link to the WHO survey - please attach it with your post for all to see/peruse - especially necessary for a topic as important as malaria!

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Don't go to India ~ Pre-trip Warnings & Misconceptions?

Marte

Last year I found a new insect repellent, Cutter Advanced. The active substance in it is Picaridin. This is what we use on our son. It is less toxic to Humans than Deet. Malaria is just one of the things that mosquitoes transmit, dengue is the other one we worry about. (There have been recent cases in Delhi) As far as I know there is no way to prevent Dengue other than insect repellent.

guidedeba

Thanks for your kind reply. I am sorry for my less concentration while writing about the drug resistance. It is true that the drug resistant could be the parasites not the mosquitoes. But Mosquitoes are also getting resistant against the normal anti-mosquitoe repellents. So the latest ones are always coming to the markets replacing the old ones. And vector control for Malaria in personal level is getting more difficult day by day.

But, I hope next time you try to ‘show off’ (I found it under your id – to my surprise I found it amazingly true – I can never think of poking my nose in so many posts in such a little existence in this community) during replying some post, please try to read the post of the other person carefully and before writing please try to be sure that you know that subject. (May be there are few persons who likes to talk about things which they really know; but they are there. Not everyone try to show off at every possible instance).

I felt happy that you checked your post and edited it later and resubmitted when you found that my existence in this forum dates back at least 4 years more than you. Your original submitted massage (first one) which I got from the Indiamike mail suggests so. Also I am not so confused. I wrote after “going back home from Indonesia not India. And if you check the time gap between the Malaria affected persons I know then you will understand what I meant.

May be I don’t like to show off. May be I don’t have much time to reply all the scraping here. May be I am busy in doing some more interesting studies than replying some silly questions which are answered many times in this community.

But when it comes to some serious thing like the health problem, or, something which might interfere in some way to a project going on I thought of spend some time typing.

I would not ask you go through all the difficult big volumes of all the PSM (Preventive & Social Medicine) books. Or ask you to web through the net to find out some pages published by WHO (If you only know how many pages are published in the net out of the total work done on the projects – Still they believe in the Print media than the cyber world).

I would just ask you to go to your “my home doctor” ask for the copy of the PSM (Park’s Text Book of Preventive & Social Medicine - By K. Park – 15th Edn [preferably because you will find the page no.s and references taken by me from that book]) book which he studied during his good old MBBS College days. (In India most of the Medical Colleges follow that book as “Bhagabad-Gita” on PSM. BTW it is recommended as the Text Book for PSM in quite a lot of Medical colleges all over the world). And please take the pain to leaf through pages 188 – 202. You will find the Arthropod Borne Diseases Malaria there. Read the pages and chapters I mention here to find what I wrote in my last post relevant. And also if possible please go through the pages of the reports & books I Put in the end of this note. Please find below some lines from that book.

P.193 – ‘Incubation period’ – “With some strain of P. Vivax, the incubation period may be delayed for as long as 9 months; this may also occur with other species in persons who have been taking suppressing antimalarial drugs

P. 200 – (b) ‘Active Intervention Measure’ - “Neither Chemotherapy nor Chemoprophylaxis will be able to reduce significantly the Malaria prevalence or, transmission . It can be only obtained when proper anti-mosquito measures are introduced.

P – 198 – “Toxic Hazards of Drugs” - (Read the whole paragraph especially the hazards of taking the quinine for prolonged period on retina & cardio-vascular system. Only Mefloquine is recommended in monitored situation. But the main problems have been neuropsychiatric side effects the symptoms vary and may include anxiety, depression, sleep disturbances, nightmares,hallucinations and occasionally overt psychoses or convulsions. Symptoms usually occur early on in the use of the drug,70% from the first 3 doses. It should not be given to those with a history of convulsions, epilepsy in first degree relatives, or serious psychiatric disorder. Only the Chinese drug ‘artimisinin’ is nowadays is administered)

P. 199 – “Table of Prophylaxis & treatment for Malaria” – Doxycycline ( The note says ‘there is relatively little experience with this drug and the knowledge of its efficacy and toxicity is limited’. I think any antibiotic used regularly is not so good for health which can kill the friendly & helpful micro-organisms in our mouth & stomach)

P. 201 – ‘Integrated Control’ – “ …which includes bioenvironmental and personal protection measure . This approach is important because there is no single and simple method that would ensure control of transmission.

This is copied from the article “Current views on malaria prophylaxis – by Dr Arlene Goldman MB.BCh. MRCP(UK) MACP”. - “Malaria vaccines are not yet in use by the WHO but trials are still being considered. The recommendations for prophylaxis vary greatly from country to country and there is no generally accepted regime in areas of chloroquine resistance. Protective measures plus Chloroquine and Proguanil still represent the most generally recommended regimes together with standby drugs in areas of chloroquine resistance. Sub-saharan Africa is a tremendous problem and in spite of potential side effects many authorities recommend Mefloquine for this part of the World”

I hope it is already boring for the people who are not so much interested about making there body a resovoir of chemicals. If you are interested to search more please go through this last two endnote pages. , Or you can read just that whole Review given in endnote number 5.
Thanks to all of you who have kept their patience to read this long post. Hope to get your views on this.

Bibliography

Youmans. G.P. et al (1980). The Biological & Clinical basis of infectious diseases. 2nd Edn. Saunders.
WHO Survey (1979) Techn. Rep. Ser. No 449.
WHO (1995). The World Health Report – Bridging the Gaps. Report by the Director General WHO
WHO(1983) Techn. Rep.Ser No. 688
www.priory.com/malaria.htm
A Global Strategy for Malaria Control WHO(1993)
WHO(1996) International Travel & Health Advice.

UberBone

I didn't find either of your posts boring!!

I will take your advice in with the rest of it - thank you for taking so much time to post (then re-post).

For me, it's 6 days 'til departure, I can't wait ... and though there's plenty to keep my eye open for, and many precautions to take, all I can really think of is the cool time we're gonna have !!! :0)

guidedeba

Hi Uber, thanks for your patience. As you don't have much time before leaving I just suggest that just pack some good medicines against the Malaria. (pref. mefloquine + proguanil with the consultation of your doctor and if possible the artimisin drug). Otherwise if you have some kind of doubt during your tour that you have malaria just visit a doctor and get a blood test. The medicines are easkily available in India. ( Though you mihgt have heard alot of bad things about the Indian Govt. hospital but still Isuggest taht you might visit oneof them. (Most of them are freee of cost/nearby - the treatment, medicines , test everything). Or I hope you are having a health Insurance. so you can go to some private nursing homes too. There are plenty of them. Get teh blood test adn get the medicines after why to carry soem extra load of chemicals with you. Of course it all depends on you. And if you have any problem during yur tour you can write me to my e-mail <indiaguide@mail.com> Have a nice time in India.

Anders

Wrong, many malaria phrophylaxis works against the malaria parasites that attac the brain, doxy and malarone is 2 of them.
I have never seen quinine recommended as a malaria phrophylax. How old is your book?
Doxy has been videly used for a long time, it's efficacy and toxicity should be very known by now.

pundabee

"Because overall drug pressure is thought to be the single most important factor in development of resistance, following more restrictive drug use and prescribing practices would be helpful, if not essential, for limiting the advent, spread, and intensification of drug resistance."

http://www.who.int/entity/csr/resour...st/malaria.pdf

Considering that 90% of the Earth's malaria infections occur in Africa it does indeed make sense to not use anti-malaria drugs when travelling in India. The risk is infinitely small. Add to this the potential side effects of these drugs, and it is, as the Americans say, a no brainer. But of course, people are free to do what they want.

cyberhippie

Unless of course you catch Cerebral Malaria now that really could be a "no brainer"

Malaria is present in varying degrees in 93% of India,withonly the high Himalaya completely free of the parasite!!

Nick-H

guidedeba... I note that the WHO recommends malaria prophylaxis for traveller to India. See this link