Which anti-malarial for 1 yr?

dhans

And considering we are discussing a 1 year old, you also don't have to worry about college funds.....

Hans

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sannna

First of all: decide upon this together with your doctors. There is so much disinformation on the net and elsewhere on malaria and malarua therapies to take advice from there.

My experience with long-term stay in India is that it becomes a pain to have t take pills every day (or week). My first long stay (4 months in AP) I did take anti-malaria pills, even though I stayed in the city most of the time. I took Paludrine. And the only side effect I noticed, apart from constant worries over forgetting to take it or to take it at the right time, was hair loss. After three months or so I started losing lots of hair.

I am in UP now for a couple of months and have decided not to take any prevention pills. I am again in the cities all the time, which makes the need less. Also now that the temparature is rising there are fewer mosquitos anyway. But a more important reason is that I do not want to take them for such a long stretch and I know that good doctors are available here 24hrs. In case I get a fever I will seek medical help instantly.

I will be in Bombay later this year for six months and again I will take no pills. Same reasons.

I am careful though, and sleep under mosquito nets, and spray at dusk and dawn. Something you should do even when taking pills.

Good luck on deciding... and in Chennai!

reneeautumn

I think I'm going to price the cost of anti-malarial pills here. If it's under $100 I will probably go ahead and get my 90-days worth. I don't know how much time I'll spend in cities versus small towns (no jungle for me; I like developed places).

This link is to the US Center for Disease Control:

http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/destinationIndia.aspx

edwardseco

Towns are excellent places to get malaria, believe me. I actually had little problems in a plains village for a year or so..

Nick-H

There is not much malaria in Chennai.

But 'not much' does not mean 'none'.

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wonderwomanusa

That is only because you are young. Once you are older and taking pills for your high blood pressure or other problems, an anti-malaria pill is just one more to take in the morning.

My dear friend Ralph died of malaria years ago, and it's in his memory that I take those pills while in India; I'm not in a hurry to be re-united with him in the Great Beyond.

Nick-H

And we are in no hurry to loose you .

What has changed a lot over the years, though, is the effectiveness of malaria treatments. It is just as lethal as it ever was, but if promptly diagnosed and treated there is no reason to either die or have the disease recur for the rest of one's life.

Even so, catching it would really screw up one's holiday!

sannna

I am sorry to hear about your friend!

Just to make sure: I am in no way advising people not to take pills. People have to decide for themselves. I just wanted to share my experience in all honesty. I do believe it is better to not take pills and have a good DEET/mozzienet routine which you strictly follow than it is to regularly forget the pills, and being more lax with DEET and nets, because you think the pills will work. For me, thus, being terrible with pills, being in a big city with medical care around the corner, in summer and with very few mosquito's, it is the safer option not to take pills but be firm with spraying and sleeping under a net, than to rely on both half-half.

But, again, it depends on the person, and on the circumstances. If I would go to a small town for a not so long period during monsoon with not much medical care and many mosquitos, I would take pills. So it all depends.

michael sunkist

malaria cures are overated. When I used to live in SE Asia (Thailand, Malayasia, Viet-Nam) a daily gin and tonic was my cure. Some old hand Brit told me quinine was used to make gin and that was all you needed. Never got malaria and it was a bit more pleasurable to take than foul tasting pills.

machadinha

Sure, gin & tonic saved generations of colonists. Except the ones that didn't make it. Hic!

(Tonic water today btw contains an insignificant amount of quinine, only used for flavoring, compared to the days of its invention. And the tonic water was what it had been added to, not the gin. The latter is said to have been added only because in itself it used to be very bitter.)

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edwardseco

So true sadly..

GerardKelly

In the end, it is up to the OP to decide. However, I would avoid advice that states ... I took this or my experience is this ... since every person is different, and what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for others. As for local doctors, they are great at addressing the needs of semi-immune Indian nationals, not non-immune travelers. Leave that to travel doctors back in their home country. Best advice is to see a travel doctor before you leave and get their recommendations, and then decide what's right for you. Enjoy your time in India.

Nick-H

Err, excuse me but...

You never heard of the idea of learning from other people's experiences?
Simply rubbish. Any local doctor knows what strains of malaria, if any, are present in the district in which they work. My 'local' doctor not only works regularly in UK, but even does teaching work within the UK NHS. You greatly underestimate the medical experience available in India.

But then, you wouldn't be interested in my experience !

BenJay

I lived in Thailand a few years as a monk in the forest tradition including two areas that occasionally had malaria, and resistant strain cerebral malaria. In England I was advised to take anti-malarial antibiotics as prophelactics, but I was advised there not to take them, and this is why:

The doctor who advised me was also a monk, he trained in America and was a consultant in blood sugar diseases, and had treated several people who got malaria (one of whom died because of a previous kidney condition that her husband failed to mention when he was giving her a quinine drip) staying at one of our branch hermitages 40km into the forest in the hills bordering Burma in Kanchenaburi.

He said that it's better not to take any antibiotics as prophelaxis against malaria because the remaining strains nowadays are mostly highly resistant, and therefore any one antibiotic is only ever 90-95% effective, and it's better to just avoid getting bitten by mosquitoes as much as practical, take whatever herbal prophelactics are available locally to strengthen your immune system and possibly discourage the mosquitoes from biting (tobacco for instance, although of course it is very bad for you in other ways), and if you get any symptoms that might be malaria to send a blood sample to the nearest decent hospital ASAP and if it is then they will advise you of precisely which combination of usually three antibiotics to take for specifically the strain that you have.

He said if you take any of the antibiotics as prophelaxis all you do is make the strain more resistant to that particular antibiotic, meaning it can't be used in the combination to treat you if you get malaria and also overall reducing the effectiveness of the antibiotic for others as well.

If you're going to be staying in an area too far from a decent hospital (which might apply in India more than Thailand), then it's worth carrying one of the very strong antibiotics for malaria like Doxycyclin with you but only take it if you are getting malaria like symptoms and can't get to hospital fast enough, but in that case you should probably take the dose for initial treatment of active malaria not the prophelactic dose (i.e. much more). With Ven Dirapannyo around we felt quite safe because he could take blood samples and send them into hospital to get us tested, and he kept the doxocyclin and quinine and IV equipment in the monastery store room in case anyone needed them faster than he could get them to hospital.

In Thailand the herbal prophelactics against malaria are called Borapet (tinaspora cordifolia) and Fatalaijohn (andrographis paniculata). Borapet is so effective that I heard of a monk who had been taking lots every day and had no symptoms, then left our hermitage and stopped taking it and straightaway got very ill and was taken into IC with cerebral malaria and told that the concentration of parasites in his blood would normally have been fatal but it must have been suppressed by the Borapet so much he didn't even notice till he stopped taking it. Fatalaijohn is a general immune tonic. Borapet is a knobbly vine and Fatalaijohn is a soft leaved herb about 30cm tall and you eat the leaves and flowers. They're both intensely bitter and also good for digestion. You chew Borapet, often with salt, before a meal. It's shockingly bitter at first but once I got used to it I was eating six inch long chunks without the salt. They both grew as weeds in Thailand and you should be able to buy them in the fresh natural form or just find them yourself once you know what they look like, but they're also both sold as dried concentrated pills both in Thailand and health stores in the UK (but obviously more expensive that way).

There are probably lots of similar herbs in India for strengthening your immunity against malaria.

sannna

I completely second this! Slightly of topic cause it regards typhoid, but I found that whereas my Indian doctor knew instantly what was wrong with me and gave me the right medicins, the doctors at home, upon return, where greatly dismissing the danger I might still prove for others (the typhoid bateria after treatment can remain hidden in your intestines for a long time, during which period you will feel fine, but you pose a threat to other people.)

As I worked in a restaurant at the time, and thus with food, I did not want to return to work before running the stool tests for four weeks (which is the protocol). After four negative tests you're officially cured and pose no threat to others anymore. I had to call several doctors and hospitals back home before I found one that took my request (for being tested) serious. The other just said: well you had it in India and now your better, so what's the problem?

This is not to say all local doctors are good. When I had typhoid the first doctor diagnosed me with Mystery Fever and gave me some random antibiotics, with my fever still going up we decided to find a new doctor, in a new city, after two days. That doctor knew instantly what was wrong with me, ran a bloodtest and gave me the right medicine. It is just to say that god doctors in India may be better than good doctors in the West when it comes to local endemic diseases. A bad doctor is a bad doctor and you have those everywhere as well.