Malaria and Malaria Chemoprophylaxis Among Expatriates In Swamp And Offshore Operations – Our Experience.

摘要

A lot of information on malaria, some conflicting, is availablernto the international traveler from many sources. BetweenrnDecember 1994 and August 1997, 23 expatriates were treatedrnfor malaria in our clinic at the Escravos Terminal. 17 of thesernwere on malaria chemoprophylaxis and 4 started after thernattack. We recently noted a decline in the rate at whichrnexpatriates collected antimalarials from our clinic and thisrnsurvey was carried out to find out the experience of ourrnswamp/offshore expatriate staff with malaria preventivernmeasures especially chemoprophylaxis. 200 questionnairesrnwere sent out to determine among other things, pre-travelrncounseling, antimalarials taken, side effects, compliance andrntheir perception of the malaria issue. 136 questionnaires werernreturned. 53% of responders were Americans and 37.5% werernBritons. 75% of responders had pre-travel counseling, 66%rnstarted on malaria chemoprophylaxis before traveling. 98rn(72%) took antimalarials at one time or the other, and of these,rn32% took chloroquine/paludrine combination, 55% tookrnmefloquine, 8% took proguanil only. 1% each tookrndoxycycline and pyrimethamine. Of the 98 who tookrnantimalarials, 52 had stopped their medication for variousrnreasons. Mefloquine was stopped in 60% of cases andrnchloroquine/proguanil in 27%. Of the 46 presently takingrnantimalarials 60% have taken drugs for 1 to 3 years. The mostrncommonly experienced side effects for the various drugs arernoutlined, as well as respondents’ perception of malaria and thernvarious preventive measures advocated.rnOf the 136 respondents 27 (19.9%) had had one or morernattacks of malaria before. 61% will advise first time visitorsrnto Nigeria to take prophylactic antimalarials. The second part of the study will compare these findings withrnthe experience of our expatriate staff resident in Nigeria. Thernneed to streamline malaria preventive measures and therninformation available to expatriates traveling to the tropics isrnstressed.