Dengue fever? Worried about baby on trip

[tipsy]

melmd
am bringing OFF wipes and spray, they have the highest strength of Deet and for indoors am using Raid. Plus not going to leave outside lights on unless absolutely necessary.
Same as do here,live by the water and summers can get rough w/mosquitos.

Like the wipes cause not "inhaling" the vapors & get on clothes as much while spraying.

Am not going to worry too much. take precautions as have been told to do before this topic came up and that is best anyone can do.

For me, am more afraid of meeting up with a scorpion or tarantula. haha

Am going to paradise for a week,that's all that matters.

[petepie]

I put the high-DEET OFF on my kids while in St. John. Also slept with A/C on in bedrooms & doors/windows shut. I figured that I would rather take the risk of exposing them to high DEET concentrations for the 10 days were there than Dengue. Only the last time we were there were the mosquitos any worse than in the summer in the US. Other times, they were not so bad, so maybe you will not have any problems.

[Gleece]

I would not cancel. While an illness like Dengue is always a possibility, it certainly seems like it is unlikely as long as you take basic precautions. We took our 13 month old to St. John shortly after the initial reports about Dengue. We just made sure that all of us had bug spray. We had a great time, and no one got sick.

I think this is like any of the other potential dangers when traveling. There is no way to make a trip 100% safe. We can (and should) take precautions to minimize the risk. But if we are waiting until things are 100% safe, we'll never go.

[dongustav]

I would absolutely NOT cancel. We just returned last week from our 10th trip down, we travel with three kids (6, 4 & 1) and our house this year had more mosquitoes than usual. We had low-test bug spray on the kids but we all still got bitten tons (our 6-yr-old counted 20 nites on her leg.) No dengue fever so far... you can get west nile virus or lyme disease in the northeast, but that doesn't prevent millions of people from (gasp) going outside.

My advice, live your life and don't believe all the hype that the big bad outdoors is out to kill you. Oh, and 100% DEET bug spray is probably much worse for your kids than a little dengue fever.

[RidgeRunner]

In this chemist's opinion, the bugs either like you or they don't and there is not a whole lot that you can do about it other than covering up your skin.

The bugs don't like me, I can go without bug spray for a week on St. John and never get a bite. My wife and son however, they are sweet and the bugs like them. We have tried it all, doesn't matter. Even the Ben's 100% DEET will not repel the skeeters from some people and it is very hard to apply.

[loria]

Even the Ben's 100% DEET will not repel the skeeters from some people and it is very hard to apply.

if you mix it with some lotion it's much easier to apply--though you don't get teh max concentration, i use a few drops in the lotion and the sketers don't bother me (and i am a mozzie magnet)

[djmom]

One thing I have found is that if I put it on the first thing in the morning (on the porch on the way out of the house) and then do the same before dinner I get way fewer bites. Waiting for the first to bite didn't work for me. I know people want to minimize exposure to the spray but I found if I wait I might get a ton of bites before I get to the bug spray.

Also always spray before the smoothie stand. They seem especially bad there.

[INfamily]

I'm no expert, but in our 8 trips, it always seems that no-see-ums are more of a problem than mosquitos. Is it correct that dengue fever is only spread by mosquitos?