Kenya Health Considerations
Travel Insurance
Make sure you have good Travel Insurance.
Read the policy to make sure it covers the activities you are undertaking in the countries you are visiting.
Declare any conditions you are taking medicine for or are under a consultant for.
Consider an Annual policy. If you travel more than once a year this is usually less expensive than single trip insurance.
We have a policy which is part of an add on for our bank account. Barclays, Halifax, Nationwide and others offer such addons.
Vaccinations
We made an appointment with our GP only to find we didn’t need to do this. We should have contacted the surgery rather than make a GP appointment.
The surgery gave us a questionnaire which we duly completed and returned. An appointment with a nurse was made and we were given the needed vaccinations.
The important ones seem to be MMR, Hepatitis A, Polio, Tetanus and Typhoid. If you had MMR as a child (My mother said I did) we were advised no booster is required. We needed the other 4.
See NHS Fit for Travel for more details as to what you will need.
Contact your surgery a few months before travel. There was a long waiting list and we ended up getting our vaccinations only a week before travel. It is recommended to get them a little earlier than we did to ensure full cover.
Malaria
We were advised by our GP surgery to consult a pharmacy about Malaria tablets, so we searched on line and eventually decided on Doctor Fox. We followed the online questionnaire and decided upon Generic Malarone.
Our decision was based upon, effectiveness of the tablets and length of course. We decided upon Generic rather than branded, based on price.
We ordered the tablets online, each member of the family had to order their own. The tablets turned up in the post a few days later.
We also decided that prevention is better than cure so purchased:
- 50% deet mosquito repellent pump spray to spray on ourselves twice daily.
- Nosilife (Mosquito protection) clothing from Craghoppers (See our Packing Section).
- Lifesystems Ex4 Anti Mosquito Clothing Treatment spray (See our packing section).
Diarrhoea
In Kenya you are advised not to drink the water and to brush your teeth in bottled water so I the possibility of getting diarrhoea must be a lot higher than in the UK. With this in mind, we decided to pack a supply of Imodium tablets.
After taking advice from a friend who has traveled widely we also decided to purchase Azithromycin from Doctor Fox. This is a standby antibiotic, for treatment of travellers’ diarrhoea for use when needed.
Please see the NHS Fit for travel web site.
First Aid
We packed basic first aid products, antiseptic cream, plasters, dressings, paracetamol etc.
Sanitation
We packed lots of bottles of hand sanitiser as washing hands whilst out on game drives is not possible. We have been advised that the money can be very dirty, and it is best to cleans hands after handling both coins and notes.
- If you are going to eat using your hands wash and dry them or sanitise them first.
- Never eat open nuts, crisps etc. offered free at a bar or hotel.
- Only drink bottled water. Reject bottles of water if they have been pre-opened.
- If you have salads make sure they have been washed in bottled / purified water.
- Brush your teeth using bottled water.
- Tea and coffee at reputable hotels and lodges are fine as they are made with boiling water.
Flying Doctor
Our package through Samak included Flying Doctor cover. If yours doesn’t, and your travel insurance doesn’t, you might want to consider buying it as cover starts from about £14.
