Too many of my friends are going to Mexico for spring break, no doubt for the tequila sunrise, sex on the beach, margaritas with tortillas and - for the boys - Brazilian-cut bikinis.
But if you're going abroad for break (especially if you're going to Central America) there are recommended vaccinations for before you leave. The Centers for Disease Control advise you to get your shots and vaccines for:
? Hepatitis A and B
? measles/mumps/rubella (MMR)
? typhoid
? rabies
? tetanus-diphtheria
Check your shot record, and make sure you're up to date.
Even if you pump yourself full of helpful viruses and bacteria, it's possible you'll pick up a few bugs in foreign countries - particularly if you're off to South or Central America.
The most common traveler's curse is diarrhea. Traveler's Diarrhea (TD) is actually a real clinical syndrome. When you travel from an area of good sanitation to one of lesser sanitation, the food and water you ingest might include some new microbes and miniscule creepy-crawlies just dying to get in your gut.
The most common cause of TD is E. coli, although a multitude of other bacteria such as Salmonella and Campylobacter jejuni can cause more serious versions of diarrhea. The best way to avoid TD is to eat packaged foods, drink bottled (or boiled) water, avoid undercooked meat and raw vegetables and generally avoid eating food that comes from unhygienic-looking street vendors.
If you are visiting the malaria risk regions of Central America (which has several hotspots), use bug spray often. Malaria is carried by mosquitoes infected with parasites of the genus Plasmodium. Symptoms show up 10 to 15 days after infection and include headache, joint pain, nausea, vomiting, chills, sweating and fever.
If not treated quickly, malaria can become serious and is often fatal. Spring break only gives you 11 days - hopefully if you've contracted malaria, you'll be back in America by the time it shows.
Malaria is not the only disease passed about by blood-sucking arthropods. If you plan on leaving the beach and margaritas in favor of exploring the more tropical regions of Central America, the bugs you encounter may carry disease-causing parasites or viruses.
Three species of parasitic worms that love to live in your lymphatic system can cause Lymphatic Filariasis, also known as Elephantiasis. Female worms release larvae into the blood stream, where it can be picked up by visiting Aedes mosquitoes and carried to the sucker's next victim.
While the larvae don't do much until they mature, the adult worm will live in the lymphatic vessels and eventually cause painful and disfiguring swelling, or lymphedema, in the lower extremities and genitalia.
Treatment consists of drugs that will kill circulating microfilariae and most adult worms, but sometimes surgery is required in cases of well-advanced lymphedema.
Dengue is another disease found in most tropical areas of the world. Blame the Aedes mosquitoes - by now, a clearly pestilent little beast, since they also transmit yellow fever and encephalitis.
Much like malaria, dengue fever manifests itself after a brief incubation period (in this case, generally four to seven days) and causes joint pain and headaches, fever, nausea and vomiting. A few days after the onset of fever, a bright red rash appears. In one percent of all cases, dengue fever may progress to dengue hemorrhagic fever, which can be lethal. There is no vaccine against dengue fever, so it's best to simply stay away from buggy areas - or just wear a bubble.
Unfortunately for Homo sapiens and other fuzz-covered animals, mosquitoes are not the only buzzing bags of pestilence. Black flies carry the lovely nematode Onchocerca volvulus, a sweet little worm that dies only after depositing larvae that spread throughout the body. This causes itching, rashes and lesions.
It also leads to onchocerciasis, an extreme immune response that will kill nearby tissue. The eyeball is often a victim to the disease, which is why it is more commonly known as River Blindness (since black flies live near rivers and streams. There's no vaccine to prevent River Blindness, and while drugs can kill the larvae, the adult worms will live for many years in the body.
My personal favorite tropical disease is myiasis, which is caused by botflies, blowflies and fleshflies (what a lovely name).
Myiasis happens when fly larvae - maggots, for those of you who've never come across a long-dead deer - feed off of the living host's tissue. If you eat food with fly larvae in it, you may get intestinal myiasis.
Often, however, the female fly will lay her eggs in a warm, damp spot. Usually this means an open wound, although there have been cases in which botfly larvae had burrowed into the host's scalp.
When the eggs hatch, the larvae will tunnel down into the flesh of their host, causing irritating lesions on the skin. Soon bacterial infection occurs and, if left untreated, can prove fatal.
If the bacterial infection is treated without knowing the source, the baby worm continues living snug in its subcutaneous shell. There is no vaccine against the living bug - the best thing to do is wear a lot of insecticide and kill any hungry-looking flies that approach.
Girls who scream at gnats may be practicing inherent survival instincts: Run from the bugs and you will live.
It's hard to catch the diseases I discussed above unless you're exposed to the carrier bugs for long periods of time - but that doesn't mean they can't be caught.
If you are going any place abroad for spring break, wear a lot of bug spray and do your best to keep clean, especially if you are going somewhere tropical. Wash your hands, use Purell and boil your water. Happy drinking!
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