Pho and mosquitoes
I recently went travelling around Vietnam, where I indulged in bowls of pho and sugarcane juice. I inevitably got bitten even though I slapped on bug spray and wore mosquito repellant bracelets. Still, none of the bites were life-threatening. Others aren’t so lucky: the World Health Organization estimates malaria infected 249 million people last year, killing more than 600,000. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called mosquitoes the world’s deadliest animal.
I suffer from long Covid, which made me especially worried about any kind of infection and its potential impact on my immune system. I developed hives earlier this year after getting sick with a common cold and was prescribed antihistamines to keep the itchy welts under control.
So in preparation for my trip, I chatted with the nurse at my local NHS surgery about what kind of vaccinations I might want to get and other health precautions to take. Mosquito-borne diseases such as Zika virus, dengue fever, malaria and Japanese encephalitis are health risks in Vietnam, according to the UK government’s foreign travel advice. There’s low risk of malaria in most of the country, and no risk in big cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, but it’s still recommended to avoid getting bitten.
As the world gets warmer and flooding becomes more frequent because of climate change, experts are wondering whether diseases that are commonly associated with tropical areas will start causing havoc elsewhere. Already, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has warned about the risk of increased infections and potentially deaths because of the establishment of new mosquito species across the continent.
Climate change could also directly affect the transmission of malaria, leading to new cases in areas that were previously malaria-free, according to the WHO’s latest report on the disease. Locally acquired malaria infections were registered in Florida, Texas and Maryland earlier this year, the US CDC said, the first such incidences in the US in about two decades.
While I avoided getting bitten during the first few days of my Vietnam trip, I became itchy during an unexpected stop-off at a so-called monkey bridge, where the water below was a breeding ground for mosquitoes. I hadn’t put on bug spray that morning and wasn’t wearing my insect repellent bracelet around my ankle, but became more diligent after that. One of the bracelet’s active ingredients is eucalyptus citriodoro oil, which some people consider a natural bug repellent. Keeping the air conditioning on at night and windows closed also helped to deter mosquitoes. I still ended up with a few red bumps as I travelled through the countryside, but it’s difficult to know whether they were because of insect bites, allergic reactions or something else.
I’m back in London now where the chilly weather means I’m relatively shielded from the cold-blooded pests. But for those of you planning to escape the northern hemisphere winter by going somewhere warm, don’t forget to read up on how to avoid mosquito bites. — Lisa Pham
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