Health

ITN was mailed a copy of the following letter, sent by a reader to Traveler’s Emergency Network (TEN) on Dec. 8.

Heavy rains poured down upon most of the tropics this past year; we saw numerous hurricanes in the Caribbean while Asia suffered heavy monsoons and cyclones. There has been much human suffering as a result.

During the rainy season, and for many weeks after, standing water serves as the perfect environment for mosquito larvae. As you would expect, this season there has been an explosion in the mosquito population. With increasing numbers of mosquitoes, we typically see increases in many different diseases.

STEVE, what have you found to be the best way to minimize the effects of jet lag? — Henry Ebbets, Prescott, AZ

The President recently made an alarming statement that if Avian Influenza, or bird flu, reached our shores, infected Americans would be quarantined and, if necessary, military troops would be used to enforce this. Naturally, this has scared people, even panicked them, and quite unnecessarily.

Marilyn Chase, in her article “Buying the Wrong Medicine Overseas,” in the Aug. 16, 2005, edition of the Wall Street Journal, warns about buying brand-name prescriptions abroad.

Meningitis is a dreadful word and an even more dreadful condition.

One of the most mysterious and arcane topics among airplane travelers is jet lag and its incapacitating effects on the traveler. Having firsthand experience from traveling frequently over a 6-year period from New York to numerous destinations in Asia, I have found that jet lag is a debilitating experience that, fortunately, can be dealt with.

The leg exercises recommended for frequent flyers help prevent deep vein thrombosis, a blood clot in the calf of the leg that can break loose and lodge in the lungs as a pulmonary embolus. Frequent flyers Richard Nixon and Dan Quayle had this condition.

A recent comment in the Alaska Airlines in-flight magazine mentioned that the incidence of blood clots in passengers wearing elastic support hose was one-tenth the incidence of clots in those with no support stockings.

ROY CHRISTIAN, M.D. (Ret.)
Aptos, CA

A letter from Grace Slavsky of Eau Claire, Wisconsin, asked, “Is it possible to buy travel insurance covering trip cancellation/medical evacuation, etc., on an ANNUAL basis for us travelers who take several trips throughout the year? It would save us frequent travelers a lot of hassle. Frequent business travelers are covered. Why can’t the leisure travelers be covered under a similar policy?”

In answering Grace’s question, my research has uncovered only one company that presently offers a policy that covers the usual protections plus trip-cancellation coverage.