Ellen,

mozzies are unlikely if you're by the sea; they can't deal with saline
conditions. It will be sand flies you have to worry about.

Use loads of suntan and spray. Keep away from the aerosol stuff and go for
the DEET sprays.
I find that sensible clothes help as well. Trousers help, but don't go for
heavy fabrics; they don;t provide much more protection from bites and tend
to generate more heat= sweat = more mozzie attractant.

But it all boils down to doing as much as you can to prevent bites; I was in
Kenya and Tanzania last summer with little malaria coverage; the Larium was
just crazy; got more bites than you can wave a big stick at (my legs go walk
abouts out of the mozzie net at night) but was lucky enough to get away with
it.

Contrast with someone else with daily drugs and no reported bites (yeah,
right) who came down with yellow fever and malaria.

Sometime luck does play a part; but it's all about minimising risks.

T.



-----Original Message-----
From: Ellen Bulger
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: 12/27/2001 6:10 PM
Subject: Travel Health info and question

Howdy Shellers,

At a holiday dinner this past week, I heard something that made my ears
perk
up; that there were deals to be had on flights to exotic destinations
like
Fiji. Some relatives are planning a vacation to Oaxaca. It seems that
Americans are starting to travel again, but perceive Mexico to be safer
than
other destinations, like Fiji, so there were deals to Fiji, not Mexico.

Shelling freak that I am, I dashed to my computer to find these deals. I
haven't yet. Airfares to the South Pacific are enough to make you fall
out of
your chair. I am still looking. But as I stumbled about the web, I
discovered
a cool site that could be a valuable resource to fellow shellers; Travel
Medicine, Inc. 800/872-8633  travmed.com

Years ago I took a trip with Liberty Travel to Cozumel. They plopped us
into
the middle of a typhoid epidemic without a word of warning. Five of the
six
of us got typhoid. Now I never trust anyone else to do my travel health
research. I'm swooning to go to Fiji, if I can figure a way to afford
it, but
I do not want Dengue fever which is a SERIOUS problem there. Typhoid in
Mexico was bad enough, thank you very much. Even after all these years
the
memory is quite vivid and, compared to dengue, typhoid is a walk in the
park.

Travel Medicine, Inc. has the best information on travel heath issues
that I
have ever seen. IMHO, it blows away the CDC and WHO pages, at least for
the
lay person. Learn all the gnarly details about malaria and dengue! The
report
on Vanuatu  alone, reads like the outline of one of Stephen King's
grimmer
efforts.

I had sought out the site to order packets of rehydration mixtures for
severe
diarrhea, what the WHO people call resurrection fluid. (Living in AZ
now, I'm
determined to give Mexico another go, but this time vaccinated up the
wazoo
and better prepped.). But I found much more. The up-to-date health
information on various countries was amazing. And the products offered
were
pretty cool too, including a synthesized sort of pyrethrum called
Permethrin
for treating clothing.

As mosquitos often bite through clothing, I've often wondered about the
effectiveness of DEET alone, which is just for skin. An insecticide on
clothing helps shore up the gaps, but as an avid snorkeler &
beachcomber, I
still have problems to solve. Skeeters bite right through dive skins.
Permethrin stays on clothing for several washings, but is toxic to
marine
life.

So I ask all you world travelers, how did you address these problems on
Fiji
and elsewhere? My idea of a trip is not Disneyworld safe and sterile,
but I
would like to shell on my adventure, not spend my time writhing in
febrile
agony.

Thanks in advance,

Ellen