A few weeks ago I was in Port Morant, a remote part of Jamaica. The area was recently hit hard by hurricane Dean and I was there surveying the damage.

Because the area is so poor it is difficult to see the extent of damage. Homes are small and can be rebuilt in a day or so and the roads were already in bad shape. I could tell however that there had been a 5-6ft storm surge and some parts of the roads were recently washed out.

A few days after I returned home I got really sick. Bad chills, high fever and night sweats. This went on for a week. Had I not gone out of the country I would have chalked it up to something like the flu but…take a look on the CDC site and you come across things like Malaria or Dengue fever.

Even though I feel it’s probably not, I have to treat it like it could be one of those diseases. I certainly don’t want to be the guy who starts a malaria outbreak in Florida.

Anyway, I talked with my travel doctor in Birmingham and he recommended a test for Malaria while my regular doctor thinks it maybe dengue fever. Both diseases have alerts posted by the CDC for Jamaica.

So far I’ve been lucky in traveling to these poor countries. As sick as I was at least I can get treatment and also know what I have. The people in the countries I visited just have to live with it.

Though I feel much better I will go tomorrow and get a malaria test and keep an eye how I feel.

When traveling out of the US especially to a underdeveloped country you should check the CDC website well in advance. You may also need to get some immunizations. I’ve had a whole range of them. We live in a well protected country and should not take it for granted.