: ''Boil it, cook it, peel it, or forget it.''
This seems simple, but in practice it's a tough road to follow, the problem being not so much the risk of accident as the risk of temptation. For example, the following items are highly likely to cause problems:
'''Test''': It's another sweltering hot day in Delhi and that curry you just ate is still scorching your throat, so how about a nice strawberry shake to cool you down? If you said "Sure!", you may just have passed an intestinal death sentence on yourself: that shake contains every single one of the four high-risk items. The ice that makes it cold has either been made from tap water or, worse yet, comes from the factory in huge blocks that are often literally dragged down the street. Milk spoils very quickly in the tropics. And those yummy leafy veggies and unpeeled fruits have been washed in that same parasite-laden tap water... if at all.
Having read this, your instinctive reaction will be to panic and to head for the nearest expensive, air-conditioned tourist restaurant. ''Bad move.'' They're still using the same ingredients, stored with the same levels of hygiene or lack thereof, but because it's a tourist restaurant their business model relies on catching a couple of tourists a day, instead of feeding a crowd of locals. This, in turn, means that those same ingredients have, more probably than not, been sitting around a ''long'' time waiting for you.
What to do then? It's a numbers game, but here are a few guidelines to improve your odds of escaping unscathed:
The good news is that in a couple of days you'll start to acclimatize to the local bacteria and your odds of getting sick will start to decrease. The bad news is that it only takes one fly in the wrong place at the wrong time to foil all your precautions, and that if you stick around for a while, a run-in with food poisoning is, alas, more or less inevitable.
So one day your luck runs out, and you find yourself feeling distinctly queasy. Runny bowels or simple diarrhea don't really qualify for food poisoning, but if you...
...then, well, you're reading the right article. The first thing to do is to get the acute phase over with: head for the toilet, kneel in front of the bowl and let go. You won't start to feel better until you start throwing up, and you won't get this over with until your stomach is empty, so just do it. Do not attempt to eat anything, and do not drink anything other than water yet. When there's nothing left, wash your mouth, brush your teeth and go to bed. You'll feel more alive in the morning. If, however...
...you may have something worse and should see a doctor. Do ''not'' try to just fight it off.
Your main priority with any form of regular food poisoning has to be '''re-hydration'''. You're losing fluids constantly from any number of orifices, and your symptoms will become worse if you start to dry out. Feelings of thirst are the important early sign of dehydration, others are headache, difficulty with or inability to urinate, and falling blood pressure and associated signs (dizziness). Check the colour of your urine; the lower your body is on water, the darker it gets. Not urinating at all is also a warning sign that you're low on water.
In order to maintain hydration, drink lots and lots of water. If you are losing a great deal of water you also need to replace electrolytes. The medical rehydration recipe is:
You can get ''oral re-hydration'' solutions or sachets from a pharmacy but they are essentially the same as a flavoured version of the above.
"Saudi champagne", a 50-50 mixture of soda water and apple juice, is fairly palatable and reasonably close to the right mix for rehydration.
For mild cases of dehydration, weak tea (sweetened), flat soda, and some diluted fruit juices are all good (but avoid vitamin C). Drinking a glass or two an hour till everything stops running out the other end should stop you becoming too dehydrated. Aim for drinks at room temperature.
Do not drink caffeinated drinks or alcohol.
If you are vomiting intermittantly, you should drink in regular sips rather than one big glass or more of water. Start sipping about half an hour after each vomiting episode.
For the next few days, you will find that your appetite has all but disappeared. Don't force yourself to eat. If you feel like eating something, stick to bland, stomach-friendly foods like rice, porridge, crackers, bread. But be aware that food for you is also food for any bug that has made you sick, so take it slowly and stop if things get worse. Eat to match your appetite: Don't chuck down large quantities of food to make up for the last few days, instead eat small portions spread out over the day.
Avoid dairy products and oily food.
Some people find that — as a preventative or in treating mild cases — yoghurt helps. It is a bacterial culture; the hope is that the benign yoghurt bacteria will overwhelm the nasty ones. Do not try this if you are acutely ill; you will just heave up the yoghurt and feel even worse.
Do not, repeat, ''do not'' take any antidiarrheal or antiemetic drugs. These will just block up the nasty stuff in your system and you'll risk turning (relatively) harmless food poisoning into something much worse. A doctor may prescribe antibiotics in severe cases, but this is usually overkill. Don't take aspirin to calm things down — aspirin requires a healthy stomach.
If your travelling companions are down for the count, the best thing you can do for them is supply them with water and rehydration solution, and, alas, possibly clean up after them. Wash your hands with very warm water and soap after cleaning, touching the sufferer, handling their clothes or bedding, and of course before eating.
Some groups of people are very vulnerable to dehydration after developing diarrhea. In particular, because of their small bodies, toddlers and babies dehydrate extremely quickly; elderly people also dehydrate more quickly than young adults, and any illness is serious in someone immunocompromised (eg, by AIDS or chemotherapy). A baby with diarrhea should be taken to the doctor immediately if it is under 3 months old, and also if it is older and is either vomiting, has a fever or has stopped wetting its nappy regularly, as this means it is dehydrated.
Once sick with vomiting and/or diarrhea do not, if at all possible, prepare or handle food that other people intend to eat as you may infect them with your illness. Continue not to handle others' food for at least 2 days after the symptoms are gone. Sufferers should be extra vigilant about washing their hands thoroughly with warm water and soap before meals and after using (or cleaning) the toilet.
Avoid using the same toilet with an infected person if you can. Reserve and quarantine one toilet for the use of the infected person (it still has to be kept clean, though) and use another one for yourself (or make sure the others use it if you are the one who is sick). If this is not possible, you (or someone else) have to use the same toilet with someone sick, disinfecting the toilet with household bleach after each and any use (defecating, urinating, throwing up, you name what else) by the infected person is a wise precaution. Although not very environmentally friendly, household bleach is generally the cheapest and most common option available (it has different names in different countries (for example ''eau de Javel'' in French-speaking countries, after the name of the town which it was first produced), if you don_ft know the local name, check the label, it will state that it contains _gsodium hypochlorite_h (substitute _gnatrium_h for _gsodium_h in some of the Germanic-, and Slavic-speaking countries), sometimes with the percentage: up to 5%). Pour the bleach on every part of the toilet bowl that was possibly in contact with the bodily wastes after all the solid dirt is removed (solid material hinders disinfecting properties of bleach). Don_ft flush bleach down immediately, let it sit for at least 5-10 minutes so it has enough time to kill the nasty bugs. An important thing to remember: '''Never''' mix or use bleach together with acid toilet cleaners which contain hydrochloric acid or sulphuric acid and are commonly found in parts of Asia, especially in Indian subcontinent. The chemical reaction causes the release of very dangerous '''chlorine gas''' which burns your lungs (in the best case) or kills you (in the worst case). As common sense requires, don_ft let any of these strong chemicals come in touch with your skin and keep them away from children or other people who may mistake them as a drink.
Some food related illnesses can spread rapidly through groups of people particularly where the group is regularly gathering for meals. If you are travelling in a group of people (particularly in a closed environment like a cruise ship) or attending a conference or similar gathering it is good to inform the organisers or medical staff if any of your illness so that they are alert to a possible problem for everyone else.
An injected vaccine has been available for some decades, but is not very effective. Recently several oral vaccines [http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/publicat/ccdr-rmtc/05vol31/asc-dcc-7/index.html] have been developed. None are 100% effective against cholera either. Some also provide partial immunity against some other stomach infections.
Dysentery can be confirmed by a stool test, but differentiating the bacillary and amoebic types takes at least 48 hours, so medication for both is often started simultaneously. The condition can usually be cured with five days of treatment with antibiotics (for bacillary) or metronidazole (for amoebic), and hospitalization is usually only necessary if fluid loss is extreme. The stool of dysentery patients can be highly contagious, so frequent handwashing for caregivers is essential.