Malaria symptoms and treatment

The most important symptom to remember is a raised temperature of 38 °C or higher starting at least 1 week after first potential exposure to malaria (the minimum incubation period).

Other symptoms are very variable and cannot be relied on. If you do develop a fever a week or more after exposure to malaria, you must seek medical attention as soon as possible. If you cannot get to medical attention within 24 hours and your condition is deteriorating, you should consider emergency self-treatment.

For Adults, 4 tablets of Malarone as a single dose on each of three consecutive days can be taken if you are not already taking Malarone to prevent malaria. If you are taking Malarone as prophylaxis, you may wish to consider Riamet (Co-artemether) which is now an option for standby treatment. This can be taken as 6 doses of 4 tablets over a 60 hour period.

Many of the countries we plan to visit have a problem with chloroquine resitstance. Rather than take Larium, we have decided to take Malarone in high risk areas. Previously the drug had only been used for treatment of malaria. However, it appears to have a much better safety profile than Larium. Malarone & Paediatric Malarone are very expensive, but the only other option is doxycycline, which is very hard on the digestion and can cause light sensitivity.

Take a look at the MASTA recomendations for our upcoming trip to Zimbabwe: Masta report.

NB: Ever since I used to live in the Gulf I've always have a full set of shots:
Hep A, Hep B, Typhoid, Typhus, Yellow Fever, Polio, Tetnus, Meningitus, etc, etc and so does my kid.

NB: We all used Malarone at Lake Victoria and had NO problems whatsoever, even though we were bitten to death - no one got Malaria.

NB: Get your teeth seen to before you leave home - I've broken two teeth since I've been in Kenya and haven't had the money to have them fixed properly!