Patricia Holden MD|

I mentioned something about how some diseases can be spread from one person to another and that how it can cause people to isolate themselves from others. Most diseases have symptoms that can be easily seen so it can be pretty easy for people to distinguish who is infected and who isn’t. However, what if that person is someone who seems to be disease-free but somehow could contract the disease to anyone near him or her? Scary isn’t it? Here are three examples of carriers.

Milkman in Boston - Around 1899, a typhoid outbreak happened in Jamaica Plain, Boston Massachussets. Apparently, it was a milkman who was infected by the disease a month back but continued his duties without realizing that he himself was infected. The bad thing was, being a milkman, wherever he goes to deliver the product, he was unknowingly spreading the disease. The man has 300 customers so imagine how many he could have infected. Note: Picture above is not of the milkman I’m referring to but is simply there to give you an idea of what a milkman is (if you don’t happen to know…haha).

Mary Mallon - Better known as “Typhoid Mary”. She was the first person in the US to be known as a “healthy carrier” of typhoid fever. As a cook, she infected 47 people with 3 of them dying due to the disease. After being approached by typhoid researcher George Soper, she denied that she was a carrier of the disease and refused to quit her job as a cook. This continued on until public health authorities arrived and took her into custody. She was examined and was proven to be a carrier. She was isolated for three years then released under the condition that she would not take a job that was related to food. She still did, under the alias “Mary Brown”, where she infected 25 more people. She was quarantined for life after that. She died at 69 years of age due to pneumonia. During her autopsy, it was found she was carrying live typhoid bacteria in her gallbladder.

Princess Alice - The third child of Queen Victoria of Britain and was a carrier of X-linked hemophilia gene. She passed hemophilia to the German and Russian imperial families. She’s considered to be a genetic carrier, meaning that she inherited a genetic trait yet does not show its trait. Of her six children, three showed symptoms of the disease. Her daughter Irene was also a carrier and after marrying her first cousin, Prince Henry of Prussia, she gave birth to two hemophilic sons. Every attempt was made to conceal the fact that the disease had been presented in the German imperial family, but Waldemar, the youngest of the princes, bled to death at age 4. The other prince, Henry, died at the age of fifty-six.

Those mentioned above are only human carriers. Animals and insects can be carriers as well. They don’t necessarily show any signs of the disease but if the disease-causing organism happens to rub onto you, it’s possible for you to get infected. There’s nothing much that can be done about it unless you have psychic powers to know who’s infected or not. Or live in isolation in your private island. Or an escape to the mountains or the beach. Speaking of beach escape, LL is having a contest so check it out.

If you’ve read my previous post about some of the disease outbreaks that hit the world hard, then you should know how horrible diseases can be when they spread. It’s not only the death toll that is fearful about it but also the chaos that accompanies such outbreaks. People trying to isolate themselves so they don’t get infected, people begging to be cured, the disease-free trying to push away the infected…things like that.

A good example (where the newer generation can relate) of a scenario would be what occurred in World of Warcraft. You can read about it here. to summarize, people (players) avoided each other to avoid the effects of the “plague”. It became so popular that it attracted attention from the media. Medical researches even went so far as to claim that massively multiplayer roleplaying games could serve as a good platform for studying disease outbreaks. My husband would be so proud.

So exactly what do we do in case such things occur? SARS was one of the latest that hit the world and I believe you guys already know how that went. Anyway, like any illnesses, there are ways to avoid contracting them. Here are some good tips on how to do so.

Keep yourself clean - Take a bath often, wash your hands before eating and after using the toilet. Stuff like what our mothers once told us to do. Those practices were instilled in us for a reason. That is, to prevent us from getting sick. The healthier our body would be, the better it can protect from disease causing microorganisms.

Get immunization - I remember getting vaccinations since I can…uhh, remember things. Immunization is a good way of preventing certain diseases from entering your body. Just remember to keep them up. Just because you got a shot doesn’t mean it will last forever.

Watch what you eat - I’m not talking about diet, although I would also recommend that. What I really meant was to make sure that the food that you eat are well-prepared and in good condition. When I say well-prepared, I meant that it was cooked in a clean environment and cooked well enough to kill any bacteria that may have been present when it was still raw.

Don’t share personal items - Things like your toothbrush and comb should be used by yourself only. Especially your toothbrush, since it goes in your mouth and would be the easiest place for bacteria to enter. With that in mind, don’t share your glass and eating utensils unless you are absolutely sure that the other person is healthy. Better yet, don’t risk it.

Keep your pets healthy - It’s not only from people that you can get infected. Pet’s can be carriers too. With that said, it’s important to keep your pets healthy and have them vaccinated. Make sure to keep their environment clean as well so they don’t get sick.

Avoid traveling to high-risk places - Don’t travel to places where there’s an outbreak. It think that’s obvious enough. Before going anywhere, try to gather information about possible illnesses you may contract from the area as well as other potential dangers. This goes both ways as well. If you are sick or contracted a disease, avoid traveling to keep it from spreading to other people you meet.

Stay at home - If you already show signs of infection, then by all means stay at home! Try to keep your family members from leaving as well if possible as they may already be infected. Get a doctor immediately and admit yourself to the hospital when needed. We can do our part in preventing diseases from spreading by doing this. Well, unless you turn into a zombie.

Most of us love to travel a lot without knowing what the consequences might be. We are not very aware of certain diseases that we can pick up from different countries that we travel to. So what are traveler’s diseases anyway? These are diseases that we contract when traveling away from home, most especially when we travel from a highly developed country to a less developed one. These diseases can be acquired by eating or drinking contaminated food or water, from animal droppings, from soil, close encounter with infected animals, and if bitten by vectors like mosquitoes, flies, and ticks. Some can even be derived from walking and swimming on the beach barefooted. Simple things that we ignore can actually be the cause of a dreadful disease.

Let me give you some of the most popular diseases that we can contract while on a travel, and I will be giving pointers on how to prevent from getting these diseases.

• African Sleeping Sickness

As the name implies, this disease can be contracted from the Eastern and Central Africa. It is also called the African trypanosomiasis. It is caused by a parasite and is transmitted by a tsetse fly causing a systemic disease. This is most abundant in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Ethiopia, Zaire, Zimbabwe, and Botswana. The disease would occur within the period of four weeks, with initial symptoms of fever, rash, skin lesions, swollen lymph nodes, and edema. And this can actually progress to meningoencephalitis, which is a very serious disease. Once meningoencephalitis has occurred, personality changes, progressive confusion, irritability, weight loss, slurred speech, seizures, insomnia, and difficulty in walking and talking will then follow.

There are no drugs or vaccine that can prevent this disease. But here are some tips to prevent insect bites.

1. Wear long-sleeved shirt and pants for protection, and it should be thick because tsetse fly can bite through clothing materials.

2. Tsetse flies are attracted to bright and dark colors, so it is better to wear something khaki or neutral-colored clothes.

3. Bed nets are best recommended while napping.

4. Avoid riding open vehicles like jeeps or pickup trucks. Tsetse flies are fond of dust created by moving vehicles.

5. Tsetse fly usually rest in the bushes during hot days, but they bite once disturbed. So avoid walking thru the bushes.

• Mad Cow Disease

This is a bovine spongiform encephalopathy that affects the cattle but with the new variant, the disease was passed to humans. Both diseases cause fatal brain injuries and diseases. Most of the cases are found in Great Britain, the disease resulted from feeding a cattle with scrapie-containing sheep meat and bone. This disease can be passed to humans by eating an infected beef, causing the humans to have mental retardation and dementia. Travelers can reduce the risk of exposure by avoiding beef, or selecting beef products, instead of eating ground beef and sausages, it is better to eat solid pieces of beef.

• Cholera

It is an infectious, acute disease from consuming contaminated water and food. The bacteria Vibrio cholera is to blame for this disease. It is mostly found in South Asia, Africa, and Latin America like Mexico, Guatemala, Ecuador, Peru, and Columbia. The unsanitary disposal of excrement is the cause of an impure water supply attracting Vibrio cholera.

How can we prevent Cholera? As the center of disease control says “Boil it, cook it, peel it, or forget it”. Here are some preventive measures that we should remember.

1. Use and drink only boiled or chemically disinfected water. Use disinfected water for brushing teeth, washing your face and hands, washing fruits and vegetables, utensils, bottles, glasses.

2. Refrain from eating food and drinking beverages with unknown sources like unpasteurized milk or milk products, raw meats, shellfish, and any fish from tropical reefs.

Like what I always say, it’s better to be safe than sorry!