26th Marine Expeditionary Unit has malaria

[donsu]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/09/08/soldiers.malaria.ap/index.html

- Twelve U.S. Marines who were in Liberia last month in support of a West African peacekeeping mission have contracted malaria and 21 others have symptoms of the disease, defense officials said Monday.

Two of the Marines were flown from the USS Iwo Jima warship off the coast of Liberia to a U.S. medical center in Germany on Saturday and 31 others were flown from the ship Sunday to the Bethesda Naval Medical Center in Maryland, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

-snip-

U.S. troops normally receive an anti-malarial drug regimen before deploying to a country like Liberia where there is risk of getting the disease.
-snip-
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"normally" ????

more sickness and death from shots?

[finecraft]

1. Here's what happened last time the troops got anti-malaria drugs

http://www.rense.com/general41/sdsue.htm

About the anti-malaria drug Lariam given to the soldiers going to Afghanistan:

<Snip> "The military created the drug," Tori Manofsky said (it was developed by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and licensed to Roche). "There is a lot of money involved in the drug. I think there are a lot of careers at stake. Anything that shows a problem with Lariam has to be hidden or covered up somehow by the military. If all these people came back and it was clearly Lariam, there would be lawsuits up the kazoo."

Lariam is the drug that at least two of the soldiers who killed their wives at Fort Bragg last summer took while serving in Afghanistan. Both those soldiers - and a third who apparently had taken the drug - subsequently killed themselves. The drug's label warns of psychosis, aggression, hallucinations and reports of suicide that can occur "long after" someone stops taking it. The Food and Drug Administration this year ordered that everyone prescribed the drug be handed a written statement listing those dangers and warning them to quit taking it if they experience mental problems.

[Brian Sweat]

2. What ever happened to tonic water?

[mike_c]

3. there is no anti-malaria immunization....

You have to take anti-malaria drugs continuously while at risk of contracting the disease. The problem is that all of the anti-malarial drugs have potentially severe side effects, and the risk of side effects increases with the length of time one takes them, hence limiting their use to transient exposure. That's why anti-malaria campaigns focus on vector control rather than simply popping pills every day for lifetime protection.

Still, it's surprising that so many soldiers were not on adequate protection if they were briefly in a malarial zone.