Mosquito bites and dengue on Koh Phangan: prevention and warning signs

Avoiding bites

• Use a repellent with DEET, picaridin or IR3535 on exposed skin, and reapply as the label says.
• Put sunscreen on first, repellent on top.
• Wear long, loose, light-coloured clothing in the early morning and late afternoon.
• Sleep with air conditioning, screens or a mosquito net.
• Empty standing water around your room: buckets, plant pots and trays.

Treating ordinary bites

• Wash the bite and try not to scratch. Scratched bites get infected easily in the heat.
• A cold pack and an anti-itch product help.
• Ask the pharmacist if a bite becomes very swollen, hot or painful.

Symptoms of dengue

Symptoms usually start 4 to 10 days after the bite: a sudden high fever, a severe headache, pain behind the eyes, muscle and joint pain, nausea and sometimes a rash.

Why dengue is dangerous

Dengue makes your platelet count drop. Platelets are what make blood clot, so with low platelets a cut keeps bleeding and you bruise and bleed easily. In severe cases dengue can be fatal.

This is why doctors recommend a blood test every day while you are ill, to watch your platelet level until it recovers.

Is there a vaccine?

There is no cure for dengue, but there is a vaccine. Dengue has four different strains, so you can catch it more than once, and the vaccine is given as a course of several doses. Ask a doctor or travel clinic whether it suits you.

If you think you have dengue

• See a doctor. A blood test confirms it, and daily blood tests track your platelets.
• Rest and drink plenty of fluids, including oral rehydration salts.
• For fever and pain, paracetamol is the usual choice. Do not take aspirin or ibuprofen: they raise the risk of bleeding with dengue.
• Keep using repellent, so mosquitoes do not carry it from you to others.