Preparing to meet my tiny African nemesis

I am a mosquito magnet. If you put me in a room with five hundred people and one mosquito, the mosquito would bite only me. Repeatedly.

This news will probably come as a relief to my fellow Africa travelers, but it has me nervous. Mosquitoes in Africa can carry malaria, dengue fever, and yellow fever, and the only foolproof way to avoid contracting these illnesses is - according to the travel literature - to “avoid mosquitoes.” Thank you, travel literature. I’ll do my best.

I’ve taken several precautions so far. I was vaccinated for yellow fever several weeks ago, and on Friday I will start taking an anti-malarial medication that apparently can cause vivid hallucinations… which should make for an interesting 16 hours of airplane travel this weekend. I ordered a mosquito net to hang over my bed at our destination. (I may or may not need that, but better safe than sorry.) And, of course, I have thoroughly investigated my bug repellent options.

The travel clinic where I got my vaccinations recommended Ultrathon bug repellent as the one they swear by. They showed me the bottle, and it’s the exact same product I tried one humid summer day in North Carolina before venturing outside for a walk. I slathered it all over my arms, face, and legs, set out for a hike, and lasted about 3 minutes before retreating back into the house covered in a cloud of the blood-sucking bastards. Needless to say, the travel clinic’s favorite, never-fail bug repellent is not going to work for me. Based on that they’ve recommended that I use 100% Deet, which is nasty stuff, but still better than contracting malaria.

I also located some permethrin spray and pre-treated all of my clothes last weekend. The label on the spray bottle contains a terrifying assortment of warnings and instructions to call poison control if you stop breathing while treating your clothing, but I seem to have survived the process without incident. The stuff is pretty amazing if it works as promised: you hang up your clothing, thoroughly spray it, and let it dry. After that the clothes are safe to wear but will stop mosquitoes from landing on or biting the wearer. Time will tell.

Despite all my worries, I can’t help but observe that I have easy access to all of these preventive measures. It was a short drive to the travel clinic to get my vaccinations, and a shorter distance to the pharmacy to pick up the medicine I need. Amazon boxes have arrived every few days with various sprays and supplies to help keep me safe. For Africans, it’s a different story: one in every five childhood deaths is attributed to the effects of malaria. Things are a bit better in Rwanda, where the government has taken aggressive action to curb the disease, but it still remains a significant public health concern. To read more about the progress that Rwanda has made in the fight against malaria, visit http://www.malariafreefuture.org/rwanda/success.php