Michigan Tech

EAST AFRICA FIELD CAMP

Antenna 2010 Field Camp v 1.4 2/21/10

Financial Aid

Innoculations are recommended for travel in Africa, especially for the first-time traveller. The following is gleaned from the CDC website and from personal experience.

 

Try to get your inoculations at least a week or two before leaving. 

 

RECOMMENDED

 

MMR (measles, mumps, rubella)

DPT (diphtheria, perussus,tetanus)

Yellow Fever

Hepatitus A

Hepatitus B

Typhoid

Meningitis

Malaria (antimalarial drugs)

 

 

The following are a judgment call: 

Rabies (?)

Polio (?)

 

I did not opt for these last two.

  

You can check all this out at the CDC Webpage:

http://wwwn.cdc.gov/travel/destinationKenya.aspx

 

 

You can get your shots all at once and have a sore shoulder for a day or so, but sometimes the clinic will be out of a particular vaccine, so it’s really best to take care of this at least a month out.

 

You really should take an antimalarial prophylactic while in Africa although I have never seen a lot of mosquitos where we go. You can opt to take one pill per day plus one for 2-4 days at the beginning and end or you can get a week-long pill. I usually go for the week-long pill though it does give you "vivid" dreams).

 

Anti-marlarial pills are available in Nairobi, usually much cheaper than similar pills in the U. S. I usually buy the bulk of my pills in Nairobi. (Marlarial pills are surprisingly expensive if you do not have good insurance.) It the pills seem expensive ($300 - $500 !) you can buy them in Nairobi. But since you need to start them 2 days before you leave you will need to pick up a couple stateside.

 

NOTE: Make sure you get marlarial pills that work in Kenya. There are 3-4 varieties out there and not all of them are effective in certain places. Another reason to buy in Nairobi? I will try to find the ones that are effective and post them here.

 

OTHER HEALTH ISSUES

 

If you regularly take medicines be sure to bring enough along. There are good pharmacies in Nairobi for non-prescription drugs but you might want to bring along some aspirin and some general purpose cold tablets (sudafed variety) as well as bandaids and Tuff-skin for blisters. You can buy almost everything in Nairobi that you would find in the USA, so no need to try to get anything through TSA that you think might give you problems.

 

Stomach problems seem to be unavoidable in East Africa, usually of the mild variety, but expect at least some GI problems.