Staying healthy while away

The two most common ailments suffered by backpackers abroad are bites from insects, ticks or animals and travellers diarrhoea from ingestion of contaminated food or water or from close proximity of already infected people. Below we give you a few pointers to try to reduce the risks of contracting either.

Insect Bites

Not all bites carry life threatening diseases. As well as the most common disease to be contracted by a bite — Malaria, insect bites can also be just a most annoying and uncomfortable hazard that you encounter when venturing outside.

We have listed a few things that you can do to reduce the probability of suffering insect bites while backpacking:

Tick Bites

You can be at risk from tick bites if your travelling consists of any trekking across low growing vegetation and scrubland. Ticks can cause serious diseases as can be seen on our disease pages.

Below are a few things that you can do to help protect or detect ticks:

Preventing Travellers Diarrhoea

Eating and drinking abroad can be hazardous. If you are sensible and follow some of the advice below then the chances of getting travellers diarrhoea or even worse a variety of worms or parasites can be reduced.

Below are the pointers you should try to follow when it comes to FOOD:-

Water

For all other water chemically treat your water or boil it for approximately 5 minutes.

For details regarding treating your water see below: