This is a question faced by many people who are planning a journey to areas where there is a risk of Malaria. The following information is my personal thoughts on this matter based on my travel experiences over the last 20 years. I have to stress here that if you are booked on one of my orangutan trips to Tanjung Puting national park Borneo I still recommend that you consult your doctor/travel clinic and consider their advice.
Prevention of bites
(Thanks to Stephen Brend for being patient while I took this photo!)
Most people travel with some form of cream, spray etc to avoid mosquitos and other insects biting them in the tropics. There is a huge selection on offer but the majority use the chemical Deet in various concentrations. I have tried most on the market and I've never been sure about the safety of putting such products on your skin. One of the reasons for this is that a while ago I spilt a small quantity of a Deet based product on my binoculars and it actually melted part of them ! Thankfully there are now alternatives and I'm happy to recommend Incognito which is a product made entirely from natural ingredients. I have been using this for my last few trips into rain forests and I think it gives me better protection than ever. For more information or to purchase Incognito please visit their website here. If you purchase directly from them and enter "Agoodplace" when asked where you heard about their product they'll send you a free pack of insense sticks with your order. It is also a good idea to cover up at dawn and dusk which is the peak time for insects that carry malaria to bite, so full length trousers and long sleeve shirts are very useful.
Malaria tablets
This is a minefield as most doctors firmly recommend a full course of malaria tablets without much consideration of the particular area where you are travelling. You can only get malaria if you are bitten by a mosquito that has bitten some else while they actually have malaria. This is why outbreaks can spread in towns and sometimes on islands as there are plenty of people in a certain area. This also means you are much more unlikely to contract malaria in more remote areas of forest (although normally of course you have to pass through towns to get there). I spend too much time each year in such places to consider taking malaria tablets so my personal preference is to ensure that I cover up at dawn and dusk. I also travel with 12 Malarone tablets just in case. The treatment for malaria in many cases is 4 Malarone tablets each day for 3 days which is normally enough to stop it in its tracks.
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