Malaria Tablets for Vietnam.
There are endless forum questions, posts and answers regarding whether or not you should take Malaria tabs when travelling through Vietnam. I’d say you’re probably reading this hoping I will tell you it isn’t worth it and you don’t have to worry. Now the safe answer, and the answer most would give is that yes, you should take them. People give this advise because it is not them paying the money (upwards of $100) for these tablets.
I would say that they are not worth worrying about. For the good ones (Malarone) which supposedly have little or less side effects than the alternatives, I paid over $120. That was only enough to cover 3 weeks which was half my trip. Did I take a single one of them? No. In fact the only reason I would have considered taking them was that I was feeling a little bored and wanted to see if I could have any crazy dreams or hallucinations.
With these particular tablets you are supposed to begin your prescription 48 hours before entering a malaria prone area, every day during and for 7 days after leaving it. For a 6 week trip like mine that would involve consuming 51 of these tablets that can potentially have detrimental side effects, giving you terrifying dreams or just generally making you feel like crap. The combination of having to remember to take them, the probability of encountering these side effects and the likely hood of a Malaria carrying mosquito actually biting me, meant that I didn’t even open the box. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t take them, because there is still a chance, but even then these tablets never provide 100% protection.
Not Just Malaria.
It isn’t just Malaria that you need to watch out for though. Dengue fever is also incredibly dangerous with no known cure or vaccine. The best way to avoid it is prevention. This means always applying mosquito repellent, at all times of the day. Doing this will also help prevent bites from Malaria infected mosquitos thus killing two insects with one stone.
Malaria carrying mosquitos are worst at night in rural areas, whereas Dengue mosquitos are out in cities during the day.
At the end up the day it is up to you to weigh the pros and cons of taking anti Malaria medication. If I had my time again I would rather have spent the $120 on travel expenses rather than something I didn’t use. Only you will know if you will actually take the medication properly, if not, then best to avoid it. If you want to leave nothing to chance, take the medication. Ultimately my main piece of advise is to purchase some DEET mosquito repellent as this well help prevent both Malaria and Dengue fever.
For more travel tips on Vietnam click here.
Don’t stop wandering.