When abroad, no matter where you are, you should be particularly careful with your health for a number of reasons. About 50% of UK citizens have now abandoned the traditional package tour to a Spanish beach, preferring to arrange personalised holidays to increasingly exotic locations. UK tourists are now likely to be on a trek through the Himalayas, or on a jungle safari in search of rare orchids or animals.

The following advice on holiday health will educate you and prepare you for the new health challenges that foreign holidays can bring.This advice is designed to bring risks to your attention and to highlight hidden health dangers associated with travelling off the beaten track (or on that Mediterranean beach). I have included descriptions of common symptoms, to help you recognise the possible onset of a potentially fatal disease. I have also included potential countermeasures you might use to avoid contracting those diseases or to apply emergency treatment if necessary. Whatever you do, as soon as possible seek expert medical advice and treatment.

Water And Food

Many people suffer food poisoning while abroad. The problem isn’t the water and food, it’s the bugs and germs that are swimming in it, or climbing and breeding on it. Local people have usually built up a natural immunity to the infections, so they easily shrug off any bacteria and virus. A tourist can arrive in the country, take one sip of water and then be so ill from an infection that they spend the rest of their holiday in bed.

Holiday ailments like the infamous ‘Delhi Belly’ and ‘Montezuma’s Revenge’ are not inevitable If you follow some simple rules on hygiene, food and drink, you can greatly reduce the risk of suffering from these infections.

Be warned that apparently simple infections that cause diarrhoea and vomiting can lead to dehydration and ultimately to fatal complications. Young children and the elderly are particularly susceptible to dehydration.

You should be able to avoid the usual stomach upsets by taking some simple precautions.

Diseases

For most people in the UK their biggest medical worry is whether they will catch a particularly debilitating dose of the flu each winter.

Washing your hands and maintaining standard domestic and kitchen cleanliness will reduce the chance of picking up a UK winter virus. If you are infected, you’ll feel rough for a few days and then you will be back to normal, so the risks associated with becoming infected by most UK viruses are minimal.

Abroad, things are very different. Even just across the channel there are diseases that can easily kill. Tropical climates are particularly hazardous when discussing possible infections, but what are those infections?

To us, foreign diseases are just words you hear on the television news. We may vaguely recognise them as diseases but they aren’t of any concern to us, until we go abroad.

Researching foreign diseases can be worrying, but I want you to worry! I want you to worry just enough to tear down your complacency and see how serious a threat these diseases could be to you and your family. Abroad you risk infection with some really serious and highly contagious diseases. I want you to be motivated to take steps to avoid infection. The diseases you may find in many holiday destinations include:

• Dengue fever (mosquito bite)
• Hepatitis (contaminated food or drink)
• Cholera (contaminated food or water)
• AIDS/HIV (sexual contact or bodily fluid transfer)
• Diphtheria (contact with infected person)
• Yellow Fever (mosquito bite)

 

You don’t have to be a doctor to recognise most of them, but not knowing about them can lead to complacency. So the news says that ‘Viral Hemorrhagic Fever’ has broken out at my destination. I never heard of it, so should I worry? It’s rare, isn’t it? Something they catch in dirty villages – nothing for me to worry about. right?

You should worry about it because that term covers a range of similar conditions that you probably have heard of, including the more familiar Lassa fever. Marburg disease, and Rift Valley fever, and anyone can be infected.

At the same time the names of other infectious diseases scare us, but they may no longer be a threat. Smallpox is a killer, isn’t it? Well it was. The World Health Organisation declared that smallpox has been eradicated.

But the plot thickens. The WHO now advises people not to take the smallpox vaccine. Apparently the minute risk of developing smallpox from the vaccination now presents a greater risk than not being vaccinated and risking contracting the disease (if it still exists).

Having warned you of the range of deadly tropical diseases that exist, I want to finally destroy any possible complacency that you may have about European diseases. Don’t assume that all the really bad diseases only exist in tropical climates. Here are just two examples of European diseases.