Traveling to foreign countries can be quite exciting and adventurous. Of course, with traveling comes a certain amount of responsibility in terms of not only travel logistics but also your health as well. Certain areas of the world, particularly the tropic and sub-tropic areas, are ripe with diseases that you can catch during your travels. Unless you are properly prepared health-wise, you could end up being sick and bring home one souvenir you wish you hadn’t – disease.
There are a number of factors that exacerbate tropical diseases, both from a native as well as a traveler’s standpoint. Most of these factors can be summed up into one word – poverty. With poverty comes little to no water treatment facilities for clean water. Poverty means there are no waste management services to avoid contact with human and animal waste. It also means inadequate health care facilities and health education programs.
When you travel to these poverty stricken areas like Africa where tropical diseases are prevalent, you are at risk of becoming ill yourself. You could contract a disease from infected insects, bugs and animals. Exposure to contaminated food and water sources are another possibility. And of course, direct contact with the any native people who harbor the bacteria, viruses and parasites that cause disease is another source of exposure.
While the poor hygiene and sanitation practices are expected and should be avoided due to disease, you may not think about a simple handshake or hug from a native being risky. However, the people from these poverty-stricken areas have not always had access to immunizations from the simplest of diseases like diphtheria, polio or tetanus. In addition, they are constantly exposed to viruses, parasites and bacteria that could be contracted from insect bites or even contaminated water, so they could be harboring disease.
Another thing that could exacerbate tropical diseases is the climate. Weather changes and natural disasters can play a big part in spreading disease. Excessive rainy seasons can bring more mosquitoes and other insects that find the wet conditions conducive to breeding. This means that these disease-harboring insects could exponentially multiply and potentially infect more people and even animals.
Natural disasters like tsunamis and earthquakes could interrupt water and waste management services to those foreign locations that actually have decent sanitation requirement. With these disasters, brings the potential for contaminated water and food and thus disease.
Of course, your own health plays a part in whether or not you contract a tropical disease as well as how well you recover from it. If you have a pre-existing condition like AIDS, cancer, diabetes, renal problems and more, these can all lower your resistance to disease as well as recovery time. In addition, if you don’t have the proper immunizations bolstering your immune system, this lowers your resistance to tropical disease too.
As mentioned above, there are a variety of factors that play into complicating tropical diseases – both in transmission and severity of the disease. When you travel to areas endemic of disease, it is important to always take the proper precautions against contamination of food and water as well as against insect bites. The responsibility lies with you in staying healthy.
