It’s common to hear many people exaggerate the dangers of certain places when traveling. Whether it be robberies in certain places, or avoiding food in developing countries, most of the time the reality is far from the truth as long as your following general safety rules and using common sense.
One thing though that you should definitely think about when travelling in certain parts of Africa is Malaria. If you are travelling to a high-risk malaria zone, you should absolutely taking preventative measures against it. In Africa in 2024 there were an estimated 234 million cases accounting for 95% of cases worldwide, and of these over 500,000 resulted in death.
Now the chance that you as a traveller will die if you get malaria is very low as these extreme cases are usually young children, pregnant women and people with lowered immune systems such as people with HIV or AIDS. Thankfully for you as a traveller to Africa there are now many options to avoid getting malaria which can be easily implemented on your travels.
How to avoid getting malaria?
The best way is to take antimalarial medications such as Malarone or Doxycycline. These are simple one tablet a day medications that you can take while travelling and will prevent the virus from being able to do anything to you. If you take Doxycycline you will have to continue taking it once you leave a malaria zone for roughly 3 weeks after to make sure it works though.
Doxycycline or ‘doxy’ for short is also great for clearing up acne and also helps prevent chlamydia and gonorrhoea so honestly it’s really a win-win as long as you can keep up with your dosage. The downside is that it can make you a little sensitive to the sun and some people get a bit of an upset stomach if you take it and haven’t eaten.
Malarone is also an easy option, but some people do report they have crazy dreams when they take it. Everyone responds to medications differently so it’s up to you which one you take.
Is there a Vaccine?
Yes there is now a malaria vaccine available and it has been successful in preventing the spread, however the vaccine is hard to come by outside of Africa and is still not 100% effective. So, for now, if you are travelling the pills seem to be the better option.
What actually happens if you get malaria?
This is obviously not going to happen to you if you follow the instructions in this blog, but let’s say it does? What should you expect?
Malaria comes in three stages:
Stage 1 – Cold stage: You will experience chills, shivering, trembling, tooth clenching as the parasite invades your red blood cells. This will last 15-60 minutes.
Stage 2 – Hot stage: You will begin to have a pale mouth with hot breath. Along with this you will see your temperature rise with a rapid pulse. You may also experience nausea, vomiting and in rare cases convulsions. This can last roughly 1 hour.
Stage 3
– Sweating stage: Starting in your temples and moving through your whole body. Your temperature will drop and you can experience extreme tiredness and fall asleep. If left untreated malaria can relapse and start again from the cold stage.
I personally know several people who have had it and everyone describes it as the worst thing they have gone through.
So should you worry about it?
There’s no need to be paranoid about it, but you definitely should follow steps to avoid it. Especially if you have access to medications you should be taking advantage of this.
You should also be taking other measures to avoid mosquitos such as sleeping in mosquito nets, avoiding areas with large swarms of mosquitos and wearing long pants and sleeves to lessen the opportunity for a mosquito to bite you.
If you’re planning a trip to Sub-Saharan Africa, pick up some doxy and keep that peace of mind so you can worry about all the other things that come with traveling in this amazing region!
We are heading to Africa this June, specifically to Equatorial Guinea. If you would like to join us, check out our website for tour details. Or, send us an email to
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for more information.
