The Malaria Test Is...

Negative! He has a viremia (aka a virus). We were sitting at lunch in a beautiful lodge after a kind of long morning of the bumpiest road I’ve ever been on traveling from Amboseli National Park to Tsavo West National Park and Justin said, “I don’t want to scare you, but I think I have the flu.” Good way to start the statement, huh? We knew malaria started with flu-like symptoms and then can lead to complications, sometimes life long. So I was scared. We asked the reception if they had any cold and flu medicine and they sent the resident clinician to our room. She told us we should not take the doxycycline (our anti-malarial) anymore (not true) and gave Justin some Panadol (a paracetamol – Emily Beth what is that??) to help with the symptoms and advised us to go to the hospital as soon as possible for a malaria test. Luckily, it was day 3 of our 4 day safari so we took it easy the rest of the time and drove home the next morning. Our awesome guide took us to Mombasa Hospital and waited with us to see a doctor. Our doctor was a very small, kind of young Indian named Dr. Odongo and he was awesome! Except when he learned we were here for 2 months from the US he assumed we were doctors and started talking to us like that - flattering, but not helpful! So once we cleared that up, he very completely explained the complications that could come from malaria, said he didn’t think Justin had it and advised a blood test to make sure. I sheepishly had to ask if Justin would get AIDS from the blood test and the good doctor assured me that because this is a private hospital they open all new things for each test. He did mention that could be a risk in government hospitals where they are recycling things because of lack of funding. So when the test came back negative we all felt much better. Justin’s lymphocytes (??) were high and something else was low which meant his body was fighting something but it wasn’t malaria! Dr. Odongo told us to keep taking the doxycycline (we thought so) and because it is a broad spectrum antibiotic anyway he didn’t need to prescribe anything else. While this was an experience we were hoping NOT to have, since the outcome was okay it was kind of fun for me having worked and studied in the health field to see the system in a developing country.

An interesting note: from my experience in the US, I would guess that seeing the Doc would be a little over $100, the test itself would be about the same, and we would also pay the lab, again, about the same. Our bill without insurance would come to somewhere around $300, but that could be more because it was in a walk-in, private hospital setting. At Mombasa Hospital, as non-residents we were charged double what a resident would pay to see the doctor. The test was an extra charge that was about the same as seeing the doctor. Our total bill was 2390 KSH, about $35.

No Malaria!!!

yes, I shamelessly took pictures, even in the hospital and yes, Justin was very embarassed