Solomon Islands travellers - Got malaria?

So has anyone actually visited the Solomons and didn't get malaria?

I figure with the amount of mozzies and infected people, it's a place where you will get infected, no matter how much you eat preventive medication.

Am i wrong?

-J

Spent 6 weeks there (and 2 months in PNG just before that), took Lariam, and got no malaria.

In my first year there (1991) I caught it several times, the first time I was taking 2 (now outdated) forms of prophylaxis. Altogether between 1991 and 1994, I had it about 11 times (not recurrent, but mostly the cerebral kind, that doesn't store in the liver).
However, since then, I have been back at least once a year, for up to 3 months at a time, and was there for 11 months in 2004.
For trips of up to 3 months, I use doxycycline. However, I have learnt that if you are living there for longer than that, it is not a good idea to continue to take prophylaxis, and I did not take any from my whole 11 month stay. I have not had malaria since 1994.

i lived there for a year (Honiara), and figured that the period was too long to be using doxycycline the whole time. I didn't contract malaria during that time, though a few of my colleagues and friends did.

I was normally careful with things like covering up and either sleeping under a net or making sure the window screens weren't riddled with holes, but I didn't restrict my activities, travel etc for fear of getting ill

I've been there only 6 times, mostly for a month at a time but twice for four months, and never came down with it. I took Lariam onall but the very first trip; on that trip I used doxycycline and chloroquine. Everyone I know there has had it at least once or twice (expats) during each stint in the country, and some of my local friends are almost chronically ill with it. But that could possibly be because they take chloroquine for every little sniffle and sneeze so are probably resistant to it by now.

Unfortunately, chloroquin gets prescribed at many local clinics before slides are read. It isn''t the patient who becomes resistant, but the parasite, so chloroquin is no longer recommended as a prophylaxis, because too many of the local parasite strains are resistant to it.However, chloroquin is still the local drug of choice as a cure, in the hope that the local parasites do not become resistant to any other medicines, as many parasites still respond to it. I only had chloroquin-resistent malaria once, and it responded almost immediately to quinine.
There is a new Chinese drug called artimeter, available at least in Honiara, which seems a good cure with far fewer side effects than anyhting else.

Depends where you go in the Solomons. Honiara seems to be a problem spot - although after staying there for many short periods in the 1990's I only ever got it once (I was out at night photographing nocturnal insects - it was bound to happen as I couldn't wear insect repellant eithe.). I never take any antimalarial medication.

We visit Uepi once or twice each year, and take no medication - have been doing this since the early 1990's. Never had a problem. There do not appear to be malaria mozzies there, probably because there is no standing water, plus the population (the guests) are transient (do not stay long). There are no other permanent residents on the island (besides the managers).

We have also visited Gizo & Munda a number of times without issue - but are always very careful to wear copious amounts of bug repellant.