Sea, sun, sand, tan, beach cocktails – and invisible monsters lurking on the beach, which at any moment can rush to unsuspecting vacationers. This is not the plot of a horror movie, but our everyday reality. What infection can be brought from the beach, what to do and is it possible to escape? This was told by a dermatologist.
Getting sick on vacation is always doubly unpleasant: everyone around is resting, but you feel bad, your stomach hurts, you feel sick or you have a fever. This is especially dangerous when you are relaxing in a foreign city or country. But, unfortunately, it is quite easy to face an unpleasant illness during the holidays.
Bathing in the sea and reservoirs
Lakes and ponds often turn out to be real breeding grounds for infections. This applies to both artificial and natural reservoirs. Warm stagnant water is fertile ground for the reproduction of dangerous pathogenic viruses and bacteria. Once in the human body, they can provoke:
- cholera
- typhoid fever,
- enterovirus and rotavirus infections,
- dysentery
- salmonellosis,
- viral hepatitis A.
In reservoirs where sewage and feces are dumped, the water is often infected with protozoan parasites – Giardia. They cause giardiasis, an intestinal infection accompanied by severe diarrhea, abdominal pain, and dehydration. The insidiousness of this disease is that its first symptoms appear only a couple of weeks after infection.
Cercariasis on the beach
If you are planning to conquer city beaches, be careful, parasites may lie in wait for you. Waterfowl, which love coastal lines where there is water, and good vacationers who always feed, spread the larvae of parasites that easily take root on people. You just have to go into the water in a place where swimming is not recommended, and the likelihood of larvae on the skin increases by 95 percent. Also, do not rush to contact the cute ducks that walk along the beach: all kinds of ticks and the same parasites live comfortably in the feathers of birds and out of the water.
Intestinal infections
One of the most popular problems of all vacationers is problems with the gastrointestinal tract, they can be obtained without leaving the hotel, but still, most often, the infection awaits tourists on the beach and in the water. You can pick up literally anything, in most cases we are talking about rotaviruses, Staphylococcus aureus and salmonella. People use public toilets on the beach, forget or do not want to wash their hands and thus spread the infection. As a rule, the incubation period of intestinal infections is from 14 hours to a week. You can even bring the infection home and deal with it after the holidays – not pleasant enough.
How to protect yourself?
Following a few simple rules will help reduce the risk of infection. You should not swim in reservoirs located near factories or large farms. Avoid crowded beaches. Often people think that the more people on the shore of the reservoir, the safer it is to swim there. However, a large number of people always increases the risk of transmission of infections.
Various fresh water bodies where migratory birds nest or water blooms are also best avoided. While swimming, try to breathe through your nose and in no case swallow water, this is perhaps the main rule of prevention. Finally, do not forget about personal hygiene: wash your hands often, take a regular shower and try not to walk barefoot in public places.