SANParks.org Forums

wildtuinman,

I'm not arguing your statistics, or the sources you've obtained them from. I think this argument has gone in circles too many times to labour on any further.

I commented on this topic to wish gavinp well, as he's made a decision to follow his gut and push on. I was in the same predicament last year and made the same decision. Never looked back! I think it's fantastic! Well done gavinp!

I didn't at all say it "won't happen to me", but I trust it won't happen to me, and similarly trust it won't happen to him, or anyone else for that matter.

Best wishes to your ill dad. I trust all will go well.

*G

Hi Wilddog

Some camps are more child friendly than others.

All of the big camps have swimming pools. This is welcome for children, old and young, especially in the summer heat.

Skukuza and Satara day centres have lovely play areas for children where they can stretch their legs. I find Skukuza probably the most child friendly camp. Pretorius Kop also has a wonderful swimmng pool area for big and small children with lots of shade.

Welcome Schooms,

In 2008 i took my first child to KNP for the first time and she was 1 year old. we continued to visit the park until today and now she is 5 years old without contractiny any malaria but we were taking prophylaxis all of us including her. i can advise you to check with your paediatrician before visiting the park and get some insights about that.

Your experince of cnceiving a child in the park is similar to mine, now i have a second born child who is one month old and she was conceived at the Luxury Tents at Tamboti.

For now I have just suspended our visit in December due to our small baby but have planned to visit KNP next year once she is one year. our paediatrician advised us to inform him when visiting the park so he can prescribe something for us for prevention once the child is 1 year old.

Hope you can get some advises from other members.

Thanx

Is it too risky to take a 10 months old baby to kruger park in the summer time?? Are babies more at risk to malaria??

Hi Johan_Otten and welcome to the forums

Summer is high risk time and Babies are high risk group. There is a lot of information on Malaria here on this thread. I have linked to the last page but you can go to the previous pages

Hi Johan_Otten! Welcome to the forums.

As Duke already pointed out to you - this topic has been discussed in length before.
Just as a quick summary:

Medically speaking - you are advised not to take children under 5 years of age to malaria areas.
This is because of the high mortality (death rate) associated with malaria in this age group.
Children this young often do not present with the classic malaria picture and get misdiagnosed.
Even if they are diagnosed early on, their chance of survival is not as good as older children or adults. Another point of concern - is even if you decide to take a 10 month old against medical advice, one can only use malaria prophylaxis (antimalarial medications) in children weighing more than 10kg.
Most 10-month old babies will not qualify for this.

You will see that a lot of people still do take their young children into the park during malaria periods, but this is at your own risk, and against medical advice.

Hope that helps!

Hi Johan_Otten, I must agree with the other comments that it is very risky for a baby,
I took my kids to the park for the first time when they were 3 and 2 years old but it is against medical advise and it is at a risk, my kids though weighed enough so that we could malaria prophylaxis.
We also used all precautions that we could use on our children.

Sometimes it is better to just wait a couple of years until they are older which is what I decided to do after the first time I took them.
We have not been in 5 years and are finally going again this December .
the kids will enjoy it much more when they are slightly older as the younger ones can get very irritated being in the car all the time and the heat has a negative effect on them as well.

I have been going to the park since I was a little baby.
I have taken my kids since they were 2 years old as well.
I few years back my niece contracted malaria.
Thankfully she made a full recovery but having seen what she went through, I will never take a chance again by taking toddlers or babies to the park.
Its just not worth the heartache.
It's way too risky.

Yip, very dodge to take an infant to the Kruger, esp in summer due to the "malaria" season.

There is another point for this, is the temp increases drastically in summer periods and to keep you youngster re hydrated, will mean tons of fluid (not tons, tons... ) and shade where possible.

Baby could be infected, cannot talk, symptoms would present different such as "jaundice" like symptoms and the treatment for jaundice vs. malaria is a completely different route.

No doubt about it. Just play it safe.

jmo

Agreed NG, but some posts seemed to make the KNP look like a graveyard full of babes deceased.

The thing is, everybody should, like on this thread, get as much info as possible, make a choice. So no offence to anyone, and I was lucky to go to Kruger since 13 Days old at first, and only contracted Malaria at age 22 the first time, and every year since. But Knowledge,

Malaria can be fatal and we should not be flippant about it.

Kruger in the summer months is definitely a high risk area as illustrated in the map below and children under 5 are a high risk group



The map comes from this document which has a lot of useful information on precuations, risks, treatment.

A few decades ago malaria might not have been an issue in Kruger but the risk definitely change after the use of DDT was stopped.
Maybe that is exactly the reason that Scipio and those that visit the park as babies only got malaria at 20 years of age or it could be that you did not listened to your mothers advice.

I am not a fundi on Kruger cases because there will be far less compare to rural areas around the park, but when you google and compared stats from now to early 80's you will note a huge difference.

As a child we visited northern Natal (False bay and Mkhuze) and my parents did not know about any malaria risk.
I am sure they would not taken that risk if it was an issue.
The same goes for visitors to Kruger a few decades back.

My advice is to wait for a while before visiting the park.
The problem with babies is that they easily catch a virus and often become sick when away from home.
My LO caught a virus (baby measles) on his first holiday to grandma resulting a high fever.
Normal illnesses one can still cope with, but malaria will be fatal on such a small body.
In actual fact any fever can be fatal if not treated immediately.

Agreed, as Scipio pointed out, some are making it sound harsh in Kruger Park, when it isn.t
Feveral Convulsions, Hypethermia, Hypothermia (during winter can happen) and dehydration is a daily thing regardless where you go.
The main thing is, is to immunize your little one where possible.

These immunizations are not 100% safe and can actually worsen the situation.
The vaccines used to immunize you are real live strands of the virus with a counter-measure.
Same as the flu vaccine.
Alive and manufactured in eggs.
I have not seen anything that says a 10 month old cannot have a vaccination, however, that needs to be discussed with the pediatrician who has access to tropical disease data to confirm.

If in doubt, there are numerous travel clinics that can help give you all the info you need.