whiteboy wrote:Lucky Lucan wrote:whiteboy wrote:
Another big concern is the water/food/people. People living there have told me that I shouldn't worry about getting dengue fever or malaria from the mosquitoes in the big cities, but what about the bottled drinks?
You can get Dengue Fever in the cities. No problems with bottled drinks.
Are there rabies-infected animals roaming the streets of PP or SR?
Yes.
Have you or anyone you know been infected with Hep A or B, Dengue, Rabies, etc.?
Loads of people I know here have had Dengue, but I never managed to. They have recently developed a Dengue vaccine, but that's in South America and I don't believe it's available worldwide yet, or if it even works against the local strains.
I've never had Hep either, but I'm sure plenty of people I know have, it's common. You should get vaccinations for Hep A and Hep B. Which reminds me I haven't had any vaccinations in a long time, maybe I should check out which ones need boosting.
Rabies, no. I know one friend who had malaria, and somehow thinks he got it in the capital, which is highly unusual. He's the only friend I can think of who I knew of having malaria in over a decade. I'm sure some of my friends, especially the Khmer ones, have had malaria at some time in the past, but haven't mentioned it. Nobody I know has ever talked about taking Malaria prophylaxis here, it wouldn't be feasible for long periods of time and anyway you can only catch it in remote border jungles or something.
I've never had any serious illnesses here. I had Salmonella and Giardiasis when I was in India way back, but never here. A friend here got Typhoid one time and nearly died. That's a sort of chronic form of a Salmonella infection. He looked like a shadow of himself afterwards and suddenly dropped dead a couple of years later. Get a vaccination for that one.
If you have never spent much time in the tropics it's possible that you will not have much resistance and get sick easier, so it's best to be a bit more careful at first.