Ouch

One of the drawbacks of going to a country like Africa is the presence of diseases widely unknown around here. So tonight was round two in "who wants to get a vaccination?" A couple of weeks ago I got anti-yellow-fevered. This time, it was polio, tetanus, typhoid, and Hep A/B. The latter requires another shot in a month.

I opted out of Rabies, which requires (albeit slightly less) treatment in case of a bite even with a vaccination. And I still haven't made up my mind on Malaria (well, to the degree that I don't like it, I guess I have). There is no vaccination, just prophylaxe, which is basically taking an antibiotic for the duration of the trip (plus a month afterwards). Taking an antiobiotic for 4-5 months doesn't sound appealing, does it?

So I think I'll go with stand-by, which means you only take it when you start having symptoms. Since there are a few apparently well-equipped hospitals in the area I think this is the better solution.

The disease is transmitted by the female Anopheles mosquito. Unlike me the Anopheles only eats at night, so generally there is no risk contracting Malaria at daytime. If you are really curious you can just read the wiki page

So tonight the travel doc tells me that the Rift Valley Fever has claimed two more lives in Tanzania. It spread from Kenya and for a while no more cases were reported, so I thought I was good to go. No vaccination exists and the disease is very severe, often fatal. Great. I'll monitor the situation. Maybe I need to bring my race bike so I can out sprint the local mosquitos.

I also took a first aid class yesterday (CPR is tomorrow). This was more to be prepared in case one of the students in the bike classes I teach doesn't listen, rather than trying to figure out how I can quickly stitch together myself after a mosquito- or lion bite. I don't know how this would work in reality, though. When I see someone else's blood I faint quicker than one can count to three at the anesthesiologist...