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Stay-healthy travel abroad tips
Advice to remain hale and hardy even in the remotest destinations
 Shutterstock You can radically cut down your risk of all three by respectively watching what you eat and drink, getting a vaccination and using a good insect repellent. |
Forget earthquakes, tsunamis and the possibility of an avian flu pandemic. They may hog all the headlines, but the real health dangers to international travelers are much more mundane — and often avoidable.
The truth is, even when traveling to the most adventurous destinations, the most common health hazards are mosquitoes, water and plain old traffic accidents.
"If you're going to get sick, it's probably going to be from insect bites or from contaminated water," says Dr. Douglas Zeiger, an infectious disease and travel medicine specialist at New York University Medical Center and the Hospital for Joint Diseases. "The most common sicknesses are not tremendously exotic. They include diarrhea, typhoid and dengue fever."
The good news? You can radically cut down your risk of all three by respectively watching what you eat and drink, getting a vaccination and using a good insect repellent.
As travelers range farther and farther afield for both business and pleasure, staying healthy on the road is a rising concern, for individuals as well as the companies sending them abroad.
Most common medical mishaps
As director of resource development for MEDEX Assistance Corp., which provides health insurance and emergency travel assistance, Pascaline Wolfermann says that the two most common medical emergencies she sees among clients are cardiac problems and trauma cases.
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The first comes from the increased stress of travel. Whether it's running to catch a plane or deciphering foreign road signs, stress increases adrenaline, which constricts blood vessels, sometimes causing heart attacks in victims who had undiagnosed risk factors.
The vast majority of trauma cases, meanwhile, come from traffic mishaps.
"Road accidents are probably the greatest risk to travelers in the third world," says Dr. Pascal James Imperato, who chairs the department of preventive medicine and community health at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, and who spent six years as a medical officer in West Africa for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. "You've got vehicles that are not roadworthy, drivers who were never well-trained who speed and take risks, overloaded vehicles and roads in poor condition."
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Staying off the road entirely is often unpractical, but travelers can still take precautions.
"To stay off the road at night would be especially important," says Dr. Joan Pfinsgraff, director of health intelligence for iJET Intelligent Risk Systems, an Annapolis, Md.-based risk consultancy.
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