NOTE: You are responsible for your health preparation. These notes are offered as suggestions only and are not comprehensive. See your doctor for full health advice.
Rural South East Asia is generally a very healthy place to live, so please do not be overly concerned about health risks! However, you may decide to take some health precautions. Issues to be concerned with:
- Perhaps most important is to make sure you are up-to-date on standard (global) vaccinations: tetanus-diphtheria, measles and polio.
- Malaria. We may possibly visit areas with malaria, and you may choose to take prophylaxis. The drugs of choice are Malarone (atovaquone/proguanil), doxycycline, and mefloquine. Malarone is very expensive. Mefloquine gives most people psychotic side-effects! We will have anti-malarial treatment drugs in our First Aid kit, and you will nowhere be too far from a hospital. Students from tropical countries will have experience with malaria, and may choose not to take prophylaxis. The best way to prevent malaria is not to get bitten: bring strong (100% DEET) insect repellent, and possibly a mosquito net.
- Hepatitis A & B. You don't want to get these, but you will most likely be no more exposed in Borneo than you are in your home country. However, you may seek vacination as a global precaution. In the US, Twinrix is a combined Hep A/Hep B vaccine.
- Intestinal trouble. You almost certainly will have a day or so of travelers' diarrhea, not because of poor hygiene/bad food, but because your gut flora will be making new friends and there will be some jostling for position! Keeping hydrated is really the best treatment. You are very unlikely to encounter serious strains of typhoid or cholera. However, good hospitals are nearby should you contract something serious.
Perhaps the single, most important discipline for staying healthy anywhere in the world is to wash your hands often, and always before eating!
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