QUESTION:

Hi, my husband is an expat working in Mozambique for the past 5 years. He has been diagnosed with malaria 9 times, what are the long term effects of this and is he just unlucky or do others also get infected often? thanks.

ANSWER:

If the proper precautions are not taken, then it is very easy to get infected with malaria multiple times; I have one Ugandan colleague who claims he gets sick at least once a year from malaria, usually sometime in the rainy season. However, there are means to protect oneself from regular infection, and it might be that your husband could be more vigilant about such methods of prevention. For example, he should make sure he sleeps under a long-lasting insecticide treated bednet, which drastically reduced the risk of being bitten by mosquitoes at night. Similarly, he should try to wear long trousers and long-sleeved shirts, preferably impregnated with a substance called permethrin (an insecticide which prevents mosquitoes from biting through clothing – it can be purchased at most camping stores and sprayed directly onto clothing only, not onto skin), especially at dawn, dusk and at night, when malaria-carrying mosquitoes are most active. When mosquito numbers are high, he could also use insecticide that contains DEET on any exposed skin as a further precaution against bites.

The good news is that if his previous bouts of malaria have been uncomplicated, and diagnosed and treated quickly, there should be no long term effects of having had the infection.