Tuberculosis (TB)
Get the jab for TB as it starts as a cough, then you cough up blood, then you die.
Amoebic dysentery (Amoebiasis)
Amoebic colitis is caused by the parasite Entamoeba histolytica which lives in the water. Use the pills supplied to purify water and you will avoid the squirts and abscesses in your guts which hurt a lot. Dying from amoebic dysentery is a messy business.
Chagas disease
Chagas disease is very popular in South America. It is the result of infection by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi. This little creature lives in triatomine insects or assassin beetles – an insect up to an inch long which lives in crevices in houses. These beetles creep out at night and suck your blood leaving the parasite in exchange; but you can also catch the parasite from eating food they have crapped on. Chagas disease starts with swelling, often around the eyes, then you get stomach problems, your spine and brain swell and eventually you die.
Cholera
Cholera is caused by bacteria ingested through food or water contaminated by sewage and it is extremely easy to catch if it is about. It causes severe diarrhoea and vomiting, which can lead to dehydration and death.
Dengue haemorrhagic fever
Dengue virus is transmitted to humans by mosquitoes. There are four serotypes of dengue virus and they cause a wide range of symptoms from mild febrile illness to dengue haemorrhagic fever. This is a severe illness with fever and bleeding from all your holes. Left untreated it leads to dengue shock syndrome which, unsurprisingly, comprises clinical shock, collapse and death.
Leishmaniasis
This is the name given to a group of diseases caused by protozoan parasites of the genus Leishmania. The parasites are transmitted by bites from infected female sand flies common in many tropical and subtropical countries. These are not actually flies and they don’t live in sand. Though symptoms vary, the nose, throat and mouth get sore and swell first. Then your spleen, bone marrow and lymph nodes swell and stop working with the obvious result: you die.
Trachoma
Trachoma is a bacterial infection in the eye caused by Chylamydia trachomatis and is common in the poor communities of low-income countries, mainly in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Through repeated infections, the eyelashes turn in and brush against the cornea. The contact between the lashes and the surface of the eye gets sore and results in blindness. The good news is that you are going to seek treatment for this when it hurts and before it makes you blind.
I think that is enough to make you keep an eye on your health. OK?
BITING CREATURES
The animals to be afraid of are not the big cats, the alligators you meet on jungle exercises and so on. Insects are by far the most dangerous creatures when you are a soldier.
Flies
In the West everyone knows that flies carry disease yet no one seems to catch anything. In warm countries flies do carry lots of disease and people do die – indeed, people die like flies. You can get fly traps for camps and fly repellent for personal use but flies will still find you. Try to keep food and refuse out of their way and, if the flies are driving you crazy, wear a hat with corks hanging like Crocodile Dundee – seriously, they do work!
There are some kinds of flies which bite and carry disease. There are others which come and lay their eggs on or in you and the maggot eats it way through your flesh. Some eat their way right through you to emerge from your skin when they want to turn into flies themselves. This is unfortunate if they choose, as some prefer, to exit through your eyeball. If you think you have something eating you see the medic and it can be removed immediately.
Mosquitoes
These little creatures are clever and deadly! They kill more people – millions – every year than all the wars and accidents combined by the spread of malaria. Wherever you go in a warm climate you will come across mosquitoes and you will get bitten.
The way a mosquito operates is as follows: the pregnant female – the only sort that drinks your blood – operates at night, sensing your scent or heat from some great distance away and homing in on you. She picks the warmest bit of bare skin she can get at because there is more blood and then she sets to work. Using her very fine proboscis she injects anaesthetic and settles down to a pleasant meal of your fresh blood through her ‘straw’.
Unfortunately, her visits have two unintended side effects. The first is that the chemical she injects to stop your blood clotting also sets of an allergic reaction in some people. The bites come up in puss-filled boils and the ‘bitee’ feels like death. The antidote is an antihistamine but don’t take more than the stated dose or you will feel even worse.
The other potential side effect is malaria, a disease which kills millions of people every year. You don’t want to catch it as, at best you will have attacks of fever and cramps at irregular times for life, and at worst you will die messily.
There are two ways of avoiding malaria, you either stop the mosquito biting you or you take a drug to stop the disease taking hold. While you can avoid the majority of the unpleasantness from mosquitoes through the use of netting and sprays you cannot stop them all. You will get bitten. So the only sensible thing to do is take the pills. Your medic will provide some little pills you take every day. Like showing a smoker someone dying of lung cancer, perhaps showing a soldier someone dying of malaria might convince them to take the pills. I can’t do that but maybe your boss can?
TOP TIP!
How to avoid interesting diseases...
REMEMBER:
Mosquitoes need still, preferably stagnant, water for their larvae to grow up in. Take away the water and you remove the mosquitoes from an area. The trouble is you have to get every bit of water so be vigilant about what you leave lying around camp. In one Far Eastern country which used to be overrun by mosquitoes they have been all but eradicated from the cities by locking up anyone who leaves still water around outside.
Tsetse flies
These little pests carry sleeping sickness. A victim feels like they want to do nothing but sleep. Tsetse flies hang about during the day on dead leaves or other vegetation. As you walk past they fly up and bite you like a horsefly. It feels like a jab with a needle and comes up in a little lump. As you walk carrying a pack they tend to bite on the back of the shoulder where you can’t brush them off. Fortunately, you only get tsetse flies in Africa. A sure sign of a Tsetse fly area is the lack of livestock as the flies kill all the cattle. If they are likely to be a problem your medic will supply the appropriate drugs, but always voice a concern if you suspect you have been bitten.