Please can anybody help with some advice, preferably from experience. I live and work on the Sierra Leone/Liberia border as a UN Observer and am now in my 4th week of Malaria out the last 6 weeks here. I am taking lots of vitamins to keep as healthy as possible but feel dreadful. How long will it be before I can train again, and how much longer before I can expect to be race fit? Should I expect to write off the UK summer season 2003 for example? Hope you can help. Is Lariam a banned substance?
Yours Ian
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To the best of my knowledge, Larium isn't banned (yet) but is under discussion as it can cause paranoia in susceptible people - someone with more details in tropical medicine may be of help with that.
My brother's blood samples and such like are usually passed through to the London School of Tropical Diseases/Medicine. Might be worth trying to find their website.
Good luck.
I regularly travel in Africa and (touch wood) have never been unfortunate enough to get the dreaded malaria. I take Lariam and it has been fine for me. Not banned but under suspicion as Dangly says.
There's a new drug called Malorone (I think that's the spelling). It apparently doesn't have the side effects of Lariam but has to be taken every day. However, you don't have to carry on taking it after you get back.
Best of luck with your recovery.
All the best,
RB
Mefloquine has had a lot of bad publicity, but it is still available and most people who take it are absolutely fine (I was going to add "like Ratbag", but somebody would make a smartass comment if I did). About one in a hundred will get psychological toxicity with sleep disturbances and mood changes, and about one in e thousand will get a full-blown psychotic illness. Malorone is probably safer and possibly as effective but doubts have been expressed there. It's certainly a viable alternative.
There's no substitute for not getting bitten in the first place, but that's completely unrealistic for anyone who has to work in an anopheles-infested zone.
Good luck! Hope you feel better soon. I shall add you to my list of "people whose jobs I could never handle".
Cheers, V-rap.