Malaria in Vanuatu

Hi,
I am spending two weeks in Vanuatu in June/July and am getting conflicting advice on Malaria. I had planned to travel to some of the outer islands (mainly Tanna)and most of the info i get says there is malaria there. Some of the info says that at that time of the year it shouldn't be a problem. While i am happy to take the usual precautions and skip the medication i am taking my 10 year old son and am worried about him. Does anybody have any advice on whether the time of year is a major and if so should i just use the usual precautions with my son as well because i'd really rather not give him malaria medication if i didn't have to.
Thanks in advance to all.
Cheers
Stephen

I'd recommend you get professional advice on this rather than from a forum board. Having said that, there is an expert on the Health branch - Nutraxfornerves - who knows her stuff.

There have recently been fantastic malaria maps produced of the worst strain of malaria and these have been posted on the Health Branch. You should check both the map showing means as well as the ones showing uncertainty as they indicate how reliable the mean prevalence is.

The choice of giving medication will be yours whoever you consult (although I agree you should discuss it with a doctor). I usually try and find out how easy it is to avoid bites - for example, where I live it is impossible to avoid mosquitoes so if malaria was a problem I would certainly give my kids medication (assuming I was a visitor). But, if you can be a bit fanatical with prevention and avoid bites then I may be prepared to take the risk. Then again, at 10 years I probably wouldn't worry so much about the effects of medication as I would the effects of malaria - even if it there is a low risk of him contracting it. You will probably have a choice of medication and there are some which have minimal side effects.

My girlfriend and I were taking malaria medication when we were on Tanna but I started getting dizzy spells so we stopped taking it. We were fine but that could have been luck. We did use mosquito coils 24 hours a day as well as insect repellant.

I have lived in Vanuatu for a year now and have been to Tanna, Pentecost and Santo, and there is Malaria present in every Island. I caught malaria 45 minutes from Port Vila. You just have to take precautions of repellant, coils and nets when in the Islands and villages. Its up to you with the medication. I've just spent a month away in the Islands (Tanna and Pentecost) and was fine but I used coils at night time.

Cheers
Andrew

There is malaria all over Vanuatu. Take antimalarials. Don't mess around with this.

Not an ad, but the new anti-malarials do not make me sick at all, I always get them now. You don't have to take them in advance of arriving in the malarial zone; you take one a day while you're there and then one a day for the week after you leave.

Even though there is malaria everywhere it is small relative to dengue fever. There was a dengue fever alert in Vila a couple of months ago. There was an even bigger outbreak in New Caledonia.

Take plenty of repellant and always sleep under a net. Vanuatu mosquitos bite as much in the day as the night so put on some repellant in the mornings too.