Christina: It’s so great to hear from you, specially since you’re from the affected area. It’s mainly needless worrying in my part, brought on by anxiety since I’m leaving by month’s end. I’m so excited! I’m going to Singapore, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Malaysia 😀

Michelle: 5 months is too much, I think. That’s probably just 5 days 🙂 It’s a precautionary measure imposed by the World Health Organization. I’ll probably do the same if I came from an infected are, mainly just to ensure that I don’t infect anybody else in the event that I do get infected *knocks on wood*

It is of course healthier for your body to eat less fatty pork in general for heart and weight reasons …. not that I am giving up my porkchops anytime soon. Heh heh.

I’ve a question about the medical insurance, though. We’re only staying in HK for five days, how much could the insurance be? Sorry for asking you this, the Blue Cross Web site only had quotes for long trips. TIA for your help. 🙂

Honestly, do your best to simply not worry. The chances are so slim of you contracting the virus. I ride the New York subway system daily (what a cesspol of viruses THAT is), and I am not concerned.

Where are you planning to travel to? Even most of Mexico is not high risk, outside of Mexico City.

The main thing that will help is simply washing your hands frequently. And maintain consciousness of not touching your hands to your face after touching something lots of other people have touched, like a pole on the metro, until you’ve washed.

Masks apparently do almost nothing. Don’t bother.

I wish I could find a journalist’s article I read about it, who lived through SARS in China. That was her advice — washing your hands frequently does a surprising amount to cut down the rate of infection for such a virus. And not just SARS or swine flu, but pretty much all viruses. While masks were not very effective at keeping the uninfected from contracting the virus. They only help the sick from spreading the germs around. So if you’re healthy, masks don’t make any sense.

Anyway, enjoy your trip and don’t stress! Stress lowers your immune system! :-p

Cguro ingat ingat lang when you travel. The precautionary steps you did here would be enough I think.

Stay safe!

Before traveling, it’s also prudent to update vaccinations not just to Flu but also Tetanus, Hep. A & B. I surely agree with travel insurance – I myself never travel without one.

bchai: OMG, Malaysia just confirmed that they have 2 people with H1N1! Both were students flying in from their universities in the US. A lot of students in SG and MY study overseas and since school’s out for the summer, a lot of them are flying home. Nyarg! And their first two cases of H1N1 patients prove that thermal scanners at the airport aren’t really effective in detecting flu/fever, since they both didn’t develop the symptoms until a day after their flight.

magnetic-rose: Thanks for the book suggestion! My only gripe about those kind of books is that they’re more geared toward Western travelers 🙁

dementedchris: Better safe than sorry no! Kebs na if people look at you funny. I’ll be writing about travel insurance in future posts ^_^

Seriously, though, thanks for this article! International airports make me paranoid because I really have low resistance. When I traveled went out of the country just recently, I didn’t care how silly I looked applying alcohol to my hands and surfaces I used. Hahaha. Of course, my friends didn’t want anything to do with me but… 😛

I also took lots of vitamins before/during/after the trip and stayed away from cigarette smoke, dust, etc. Thanks for the tip on the travel insurance. I don’t think I’ve ever traveled with one. 🙂