Obviously, there are some health concerns whenever one is traveling to the tropics, to say nothing of the specific connotations with sub-Saharan Africa. I think people actually have so many fears about traveling to Africa—or loved ones traveling there—because they don’t understand the health concerns. It’s just a place with a lot of diseases we can’t count or wrap our temperate-clime heads around. We would rather stress about what could happen to those helpless travelers than pull up a Wikipedia article. The level-headed traveler, meanwhile, understands the risks and has researched the likes of cholera, typhoid, dengue, bilharzia, and that old enemy, malaria.
For those who don’t know, malaria is a parasite that lives out its life cycle between the human and the mosquito hosts. Not unlike a congressman that unwinds from the hard work of leeching off a constituency by running off to his summer home, the parasite flees the human host after breeding in its liver and red blood cells back into a biting mosquito to be transferred to the next human host and start the disgusting process all over again. Travelers to malaria-endemic areas are strongly advised to prevent malaria by taking prophylaxis, such as doxycycline, malarone, or mefloquin. And of course…don’t get bit.
Even with all of this knowledge and the experience of traveling in Ghana for four months malaria free, I got malaria immediately upon returning to this beautiful, mosquito-infested country. I didn’t realize it at first since Kaitlyn had been struck with heat exhaustion the night before—which has many similar symptoms—and recovered within 24 hours. But after my piercing headache, burning joints, fiery skin, and disorientation persisted longer than 24 hours, I knew I had to visit the hospital immediately.
This is the part where I riff on the Ghanaian medical system versus the American one. I don’t have health insurance in Ghana, which meant that I had to pay 20 cedis (about $6) for a medical folder and then whatever the cost of the drugs turned out to be. After paying the 20 cedis, I was told that I could now return to that hospital and visit the doctor for free. Sweet, thanks Hohoe Municipal Hospital; may all my parasitic infections happen near you. This is opposed to the $40 co-pay I have in the US just to see a doctor with insurance. The doctor took one look at me and prescribed malaria medication. I asked follow-up questions: “Are you sure the timeline lines up? Are you sure it’s not typhoid?” He looked up from his prescription pad and said, “Oh, it is definitely malaria.” Okay, you’re the dude in the white coat operating in the tropics. I’ll trust you. They don’t mess around with this little blood-bug here. If you have the symptoms, they treat you for malaria. Every 24 hours is precious time against the bane of adventurous white men (I now understand why European colonists got their asses handed to them by malaria). So then I went and picked up my medication for 7 cedis (roughly $2).
Wait a second. I paid $2 to cure myself of malaria. It can’t be that easy. The reason I say this is that the cost of prophylaxis, which I bought in the US and started taking before entering the malaria area (that’s a fun term phonetically), was extraordinarily expensive. Doxycycline, which is the cheapest malaria prophylaxis, costs around $3 per pill without insurance. That’s one day of maybe-protection. The full course of prophylaxis for Kaitlyn and I for six months was going to cost anywhere from $700 to $2,000. Fortunately, I had RX insurance that charged only a co-pay of $10, but they refused to pay for the full course because it was too expensive for them, so they gave me one month (30 pills) and cut me off. I accepted this and decided to buy my prophylaxis in Ghana, because a friend of mine here did the research for me and found that it was supremely cheaper. Several of the US pharmacies told me that doxy was so expensive because an ingredient became really rare. Really? Because I came to Ghana and found it for $0.03 per capsule. That’s right. It’s literally 100 times cheaper to get your malaria prophylaxis in Ghana.
The thing that really bursts my blood cells is that it was actually cheaper for me to get malaria and treat it than to prevent it. On top of that, the pills I got in America didn’t even protect me—I got malaria immediately while on it. I shudder to think what it would cost to treat malaria in the States. The moral of the story is that US citizens can rest easy about friends and family traveling to Ghana. The medical system here will take care of them. You might instead want to worry about yourselves getting sick in the United States.
I would like to end this post with some words of wisdom from the malaria parasite itself. You see, malaria bursts your red blood cells from the inside, which means that less oxygen is getting to your extremities, including your brain. You get tingling in your fingers and face, and a phenomenon that Kaitlyn nicknamed “malaria brain.” You say some funny things while recovering from malaria, and while Kaitlyn did a fantastic job taking care of me while I recovered, she also wrote down a few of the nuggets I said:
- “I know someone who got a butt-shot in Bolgatanga.”
- “Girl, my blood is boiling…with parasites.”
- “Let’s go get shwasted at the Virgin Lips.”
- “Man, I feel so good.” (falls over)
- “Water for Elephants, biscuits for Brady.”
- “It’s no fair! You get tan and I get malaria!”
