20/8/0
Read the beginning of the article: Plague-stricken vacation
You can get infected there in two ways: through insect bites or airborne droplets. If a person is bitten by an infected insect or animal, they fall ill with bubonic forms of plague, accompanied by swollen lymph nodes. If treatment is not started in time, bubonic plague can develop into pneumonic plague. The pneumonic form of plague is considered the most severe and extremely dangerous for others. Therefore, if you suddenly develop a high fever, chills, severe headache, difficulty breathing, and coughing up blood, you must immediately consult a doctor.
However, plague may not appear immediately, but only after about six days, and according to experts, this is its main danger. However, timely consultation with a doctor guarantees that treatment will be successful.
Do not swim in African pools
Yellow fever is another serious viral disease that awaits vacationers on the African continent. You can get infected both in nature and in the city, and only through airborne droplets. This is a very dangerous disease. The immune system weakened by climate change easily succumbs to the virus, and in 25% of cases, doctors report a fatal outcome.
This disease is characterized by severe toxicosis: headache, high fever, hemorrhagic rash. Then infection of the kidneys and liver occurs with the development of jaundice and acute renal failure. However, a timely vaccination can reliably protect a tourist from this ailment. And then you can travel around African countries with a clear conscience – immunity usually lasts up to ten years.
Malaria is perhaps one of the most severe infectious diseases, widespread in countries with tropical and subtropical climates. "Infection occurs through the bites of malaria mosquitoes," says Nikita Serpukhov, a doctor at one of the specialized clinics. "The most severe form of malaria is tropical malaria. It can only be contracted in Central African countries. Symptoms: fever, chills, heavy sweating, headache, and weakness. Without timely treatment, tropical malaria can be fatal, and in a very short time." For prevention, doctors recommend regularly taking antimalarial drugs. You should start taking them a week before the trip and finish a month after returning.
In tropical countries, diseases caused by worms are also common. There are more than a hundred such diseases – brugiosis, wuchereriasis, dracunculiasis, clonorchiasis, loiasis, leishmaniasis, paragonimiasis, strongyloidiasis. Experts say they develop under the same conditions – after eating dirty food and raw water. "Symptoms typically include fever, headache, vomiting, loss of appetite," says Natalya Antonova, a leading specialist at one of the infectious disease clinics. "I always advise my patients to eat only in good expensive restaurants, drink only boiled water, and never swim in pools."
Geography of infection
*If you are going to North Africa, particularly Algeria, Egypt, Morocco or Tunisia, be prepared to protect yourself from dysentery, hepatitis A, intestinal helminthiases, giardiasis, and brucellosis.
*Those wishing to travel to Central America, namely Honduras, Mexico or Panama, should be wary of amebiasis, dysentery, typhoid fever, hepatitis A, intestinal helminths, and cholera.
*The Caribbean islands – the Bahamas, Haiti, Jamaica – can reward the unlucky tourist with the same dysentery, hepatitis A, as well as dengue fever.
*In Central and South Asia, especially in Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, the most common diseases are cholera, watery diarrhea, giardiasis, typhoid fever, hepatitis A, B and E, helminthiases, leishmaniasis, echinococcoses, malaria, and diphtheria.
*Travelers to Southwest Asia, namely the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Cyprus or Turkey, are at risk of contracting typhoid fever, hepatitis A and B, taeniasis, echinococcoses, brucellosis.
*In Southeast Asia, for example, in Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines, you may encounter such scourges as: cholera, diarrhea, hepatitis A, B and E, dysentery, typhoid fever, helminthiases and malaria (especially common in rural areas).
*Those wishing to visit China, South Korea and Japan should stay on the alert, because hepatitis B and E, clonorchiasis, brucellosis sometimes rage there, and outbreaks of malaria and dengue fever are periodically recorded. You should also beware of Japanese encephalitis and hemorrhagic fever.
Doctors periodically deal with all these diseases brought by our tourists from different countries. And in their opinion, to avoid such, to put it mildly, troubles, there is no need to take any extraordinary measures. It is simply necessary to follow basic safety rules, not to drink water of unclear origin, and to wash hands more often.