Iquitos Travel Forum

I was planning on going to Iquitos at the end of December but am currently in Argentina and have just found out that the only malaria tablets available here are mefloquine which I am totally unwilling to take as I have heard terrible stories about the side effects. Does anybody know whether it is possible to buy malarone tablets in Peru? Thanks very much.

I don't know about the availability of medicine, but I have been told by several people who live in Iquitos and that area that malaria is quite rare there.

Since Iquitos is a large city, I imagine that no malaria pills are really needed. I've traveled in the Upper Orinoco basin of Venezuela, Guatemala's Paten, and Costa Rica. Each place, my American doctor prescribed malaria pills, but when we got there, locals capable of being in the know dismissed our concerns as unwarranted. The risk of malaria in South America is much lower than Africa. Just don't hang around too long, and if you feel sick back home, get to a doctor for treatment ASAP. It takes about a month for the disease to show itself, and for a healthy person with medication, malaria's not likely to be a killer.

thanks, but what if i want to do a jungle trip for a few days, surely I would need malaria tablets for that???

I would say almost certainly not. The vast majority of mosquitoes are NOT malaria ones. You will find people living there for years without contracting malaria. If you arrive and find many who complain about having got malaria, rub yourself all over with repellent and hope for the best. You have to take the anti-malarial pills, which have significant side effects, a month in advance and continue taking until a month afterwards--too much trouble for two days in the rainforest ("jungle" refers to India, not South America). Good deet repellent will keep the pests from landing on you. Also, there are products that you can put into the laundry to make your clothes repell mosquitoes. Then, its a good idea to pack a mosquito net and sit next to the campfire. The mosquitoes are mostly a problem at dawn and sunset. When traveling in the upper Orinoco River area, I once got up early to shoot pictures at sunrise wearing only my swim trunks. I got bit horrifically all over my legs by mosquitoes, and it was a big itch for weeks afterwards. But, I didn't get malaria. Don't worry so much, you'll survive anyway. If you get symptoms a month or so later, get your blood checked and see what's up. A stronger form of the anti-malarial drugs are used as treatment to stop the blood reproductive bursts (the immune response to which causes the fever associated with the disease). A greater concern will be other diseases, mostly from drinking bad water. Avoid the homemade beer and fresh leaf greens served in that area, and you'll avoid the other problems. Pealable fruit is OK though. Good luck...

Hello,

See

http://www.who.int/ith/countries/vaccination/en/index.html

quide for malaria preventive medication and vaccinations

Right, the CDC and the WHO provide the final authoritative answer on safety from malaria for whole regions, but malaria varies quite a bit at the local level. That information also doesn't tell you about how long you need to be there, on average, to contract the disease. The jungle trip is the main concern here, but if its for only a few days, not weeks, then I don't see the advantage of taking the malaria medication. In addition to the daily month long before and month long after treatment regime, the pills have stomach upsetting side effects for many people, some people are at risk for serious medical complications from the drugs themselves, and after all this hassle, the medications are not a guarantee that malaria won't be contracted! I'd go ahead and have a kit available (get the right drug according to your doctor's prescription), because if you do contract the disease, taking the preventative medicine will help combat the disease. But, if you wait until you survey the situation at the local level, I think you'll find this a silly worry.

I realise this post is now outdated, but for anybody wondering about malaria... In regards to what atufft has said, I think he is somewhat biased (no offence mate!) towards not taking anti-malarials. While I tend to agree with his assessment that you don't actually need anti-malarials if you're careful, and that they're not a good idea for extended periods of time, I disagree with his verment opposition. I can only speak from my experience of malaraia areas (3 months in a high malaria risk area in India and some time in Cambodia on the Mekong)... Contrary to what atufft said, I only had to take anti-malarials for two days before entering the area, and two weeks after. I used doxycyclin - all it really is is a broad spectrum antibiotic (yes Malaria is a not a virus). atufft is right, it causes stomach upset - but only if taken on an empty stomach. Apparently in a small percentage of people it can cause trippy, vivid dreaming, but I had no problems.

My opinion, and I'm not a doctor, is that anti-malarials are good for short trips (up to a month) in malaria areas. They're good because they provide peace of mind and lessen the risk of getting sick (actually they don't stop you getting malaria, they just make sure it doesn't knock you around, if you contract malaria while taking anti malarials you may still stuffer a sniffle and maybe a slight fever, but nothing more). Furthermore, I found that for us weak western bodies, being on antibiotics while travelling in the jungle is great because it stops you getting sick from anything much at all!!

However, for longer stays I wouldn't take them again. More than a month on antibiotics and they start to trash your digestive balance - killing all the good bacteria in your gut; they effect the contraceptive pill (even if you're only on them for a short amount of time),; and let's face it, you can't spend your life on anti-malarials. You can prevent malaria by using deet, treating your clothing, mosquito net and bedding, and wearing long sleves/pants.

I hope that that is a bit more of a balanced view. The point is, it's up to you to make the assessment regarding your preparedness to a) take the risk or not and b) be vigilent about not getting bitten. While malaria won't kill you because you have access to medical treatment, I've seen friends take months and months to recover, it can trash your immune system and have ramifications for years to come. Remember, if you get malaria once, and then get it again, it is much worse - this is what kills people who live in malaria areas - not getting malaria once, but getting it several times.