We all go on holiday for a good rest, but spending your holiday in bed with food poisoning or another holiday illness can wreck your plans – and your health.
More and more holidaymakers are falling ill as tour operators and holiday hotels fail to maintain standards of hygiene and food preparation.
The all inclusive buffet is a common source of many serious bacterial infections which cause food poisoning, including salmonella, E.coli and campylobacter.
Dirty swimming pools, contaminated drinking water and poorly maintained air conditioners can mean holidaymakers suffer long-term ill health effects through the symptoms of cryptosporidium, dysentery or Legionnaires’ disease.
Many holidaymakers also forget all about travel vaccinations, especially if they book a last minute bargain and jet off without a thought about the risk of malaria, polio or tetanus.
Keeping your vaccinations up-to-date is crucial, even if you holiday in the UK. With more people travelling globally, infections can be spread easily and bugs and insects brought across borders.
Here are the Top 10 Tips for staying health on holiday – and leaving those holiday bugs where they belong.
- Get yourself vaccinated in advance in accordance with the recommendations for your holiday destination and keep up your routine vaccinations like polio at home
- Watch what you eat at your hotel and when out and about – avoid undercooked food or food left to go cold or kept unchilled
- Don’t eat from street vendors’ stalls – locals may be acclimatised to doing this but the likelihood is that you will be ill or food will not be cooked properly
- Drink water only from sealed bottles, never communal jugs or drinking fountains
- Don’t have ice cubes in your drinks – and also watch ice creams which might be made from contaminated water or unpasteurised milk or cream
- If the swimming pool is dirty, report it to your rep or hotel and don’t use it
- Don’t get drunk – sorry, but alcohol intake can speed up dehydration and being drunk can put you at risk of accidents like falls from height or slips and trips
- Spend time in the shade and avoid sunstroke, skin rashes like prickly heat or dehydration, which can require hospital treatment
- Stay well hydrated on your flight – drink water, avoid alcohol and copious cups of tea and coffee
- Keep moving on your flight – deep vein thrombosis can occur even on short flights if you have also been on a long coach or car journey beforehand, so keep moving and flex those ankles when in your seat.
If you have suffered from an illness whilst abroad then you should get in touch with a holiday claims lawyer at Simpson Millar LLP to assist you in making a claim.