Medicine
Officially, no vaccinations are required before traveling to India. However, if a trip to this country is planned well in advance, then it may be useful to be vaccinated against hepatitis A and B, just as before traveling to any other tropical countries.
The most important thing when staying in Goa (as in all of India) is to follow the rules of personal hygiene. It must be remembered that some parts of the territory of this country are still the source of many gastrointestinal infections. Avoiding such troubles is not difficult, you just need to strictly follow a number of simple rules:
– do not use purchased food and drinks on the street, and, moreover, do not drink or eat in places outside the hotel that are questionable from the point of view of hygiene (which include some shaks even on the beaches opposite very prestigious hotels).
According to usvsukenglish.com, eating in such dubious cafes and pubs, especially in combination with the drinks offered in such establishments and juices freshly squeezed on the spot, can lead to undesirable consequences. Before deciding to use the services of such cafes, we recommend that you carefully consider how dishes are prepared there, how dishes are washed there. In all such cafes and shaks, the prices for food and drinks, especially seafood dishes, are much lower than in hotel restaurants – this is a fact. But the risk of running into undesirable consequences is much higher – this is also a fact.
– Wash your hands with disinfectant soap as soon as possible. To do this, it would be useful to take at least a couple of pieces of disinfectant soap with you from home, in case there is no such soap in the hotel (and they definitely won’t be in zucchini and shaks).
– wash all fruits thoroughly with bottled mineral water, regardless of where the fruits are purchased.
– do not drink tap water, even just rinse your mouth and brush your teeth better with bottled mineral water. This is not even caused by the fact that the tap water contains an infection (in good hotels the water is disinfected), but by the fact that each region has its own mineral composition of the water, and this can adversely affect the stomach. Therefore, Indians who drink tap water at home, when they go to another place, use bottled water. Even in expensive restaurants, water placed on the table in a carafe can be tap water and cause severe intestinal upset.
Drink water only from bottles, and best of all from manufacturers known to you, discovered by yourself or with you (and feel free to take the trouble to open the bottles yourself, especially in checks).
Without observing the precautionary rules, the gentle sun can also pose some danger in India. Severe sunburn can be obtained even on cloudy days, so the use of sunscreen with a high factor (with a factor of at least 30 units) is recommended.
When using local public transport (by train or bus), do not forget that there will be local residents next to you (it is not necessary that they are all contagious with something, but you will not be able to find out about this in advance when you enter the bus or train).
Therefore, it is better to use local public transport only in case of emergency. It is better to order transport from the host company, or call a taxi from the hotel. In addition, everywhere in Goa, as in other places in India, there are a lot of autorickshaws – scooter-based taxis – not very fast, but quite cheap and convenient means of transportation for short distances.
In cities and resort areas, there are practically no encounters with dangerous insects and animals. However, when going to the beach, we must not forget that this is a tropical coast of the open sea, and when swimming, care must be taken, as in any other warm seas. Sometimes, currents can bring representatives of local and even distant marine fauna potentially dangerous when meeting with a person, and coastal waves are almost always muddy due to sand raised from the bottom.
When going on an excursion, it is better to take care of repellents in advance, and for people prone to allergic reactions, be sure to carry appropriate medications with you. In addition, when staying in hotels of category 3 * and below, it is difficult to count on the provision of effective means against possible insects in the hotel. In this case, it will be useful if you bring your own fumigator (or similar) with a sufficient supply of replacement plates.
You need your own first aid kit! All medications that you use constantly at home should be present in it. Also, be sure to stock up on your trusted medications to aid and improve digestion. Please remember that even the best hotels use local water when preparing European cuisine, which can adversely affect your stomach.
If you need to contact a medical institution or call a doctor, you must immediately call the service center indicated in the insurance policy and warn the insurance company about the use of medical services. If the disease is an insured event, the costs will be compensated in accordance with the submitted paid invoices. It should also be taken into account that no insurance company covers the costs of treating sexually transmitted diseases and diseases caused by alcohol and drug poisoning.
