The suitcase mosquito: No visa required
Today is International Malaria Awareness day, and many people might have been diagnosed with malaria despite not having set foot in a malaria risk area. Here's how those pesky mozzies can sometimes make their way into a non-risk area.
Travelling from one area or country to another by road, sea, rail, air or even taxi bus has become an easy way to see the world and visit relatives.
Unfortunately these are some of the modes of travel that have made it easy for malaria mosquitoes to hitch a ride to non-endemic malaria areas.
How do they do it?
Researchers and doctors identified the following possibilities of how malaria can spread:
- Via a suitcase or baggage: Where the infected mosquito may have been “imported” from a malaria area via someone else’s baggage.
- Airport malaria: Where infected mosquitoes are transported in either the baggage or the wheel bays of foreign aircraft, and released when the bays are opened during approach to landing. They can survive for up to nine hours in the wheel bays and are able to fly more than two kilometres to find a human victim.
- Runway malaria: Where infected mosquitoes fly into aircraft on stopovers at airports in malaria-endemic countries or areas.
- Non-mosquito-born forms of malaria, such as blood transfusions, bone-marrow transplants and needlestick transmissions.
What’s being done about it?
In South Africa, according to public health regulations, aeroplanes need to be disinfected before they are opened and both the pilots and Ministry of Health officials must enforce these rules. Internationally, over 80 countries follow the aircraft disinfection recommendations of the World Health Organisation (WHO).
What can you do?
Apart from taking anti-malaria medication and other precautions when visiting malaria risk areas, be especially careful not to transport mosquitoes back home in your car or baggage.
However, if you do come down with the following symptoms, even if you have not been in a malaria risk area, ask your doctor for a malaria blood test:
- Flu symptoms that do not clear up despite medication.
- Sudden high fever of unknown origin.
- Severe headaches, sweating, shivering attacks, nausea, diarrhoea and fatigue.
Malaria, although relatively easy to treat if diagnosed early, can be fatal if not caught and treated in time.
Source: LifeAssist
