WHEN IT comes to holiday souvenirs, malaria is the last thing you want to bring home. Yet every year 2,000 Britons develop the debilitating illness after returning from a tropical holiday, and between 10 and 20 die from it.

New figures from the Malaria Reference Laboratory, part of the Health Protection Agency, show that the problem is increasing in The Gambia. In just three months this winter 27 Britons came home with malaria from the West African country; seven needed intensive care and three died. Nineteen of them had taken no, or inadequate, anti-malarial drugs.

The Gambia is promoted in holiday brochures as a year-round sunshine destination alongside non-malarial spots such as the Canary Islands, Portugal and Spain. It’s a lovely country, but you must take precautions against malaria, even if you are only planning to stay on the beach rather than venture inland.

Yet I cannot find the world “malaria” mentioned in the brochures of Eclipse Direct and Sunstart, part of First Choice, while in Thomas Cook’s winter sun brochures it is in minuscule print in the booking conditions. It is left to a specialist operator, The Gambia Experience, to include a prominent warning about the “increase of reported cases over the past year . . .” and to offer clear advice to customers to consult a doctor before travelling.

Another problem is the increase in sales of late package holidays. “People tend to book at the last minute, and either do not research, or put enough emphasis on, the need for proper (malaria) protection,” said Dr Richard Dawood, of the Fleet Street Clinic, which specialises in travel health. “But over-the-counter drugs are not necessarily the right thing.”

The only malaria tablets you can buy from the chemist in the UK are chloroquine and proguanil, which are not recommended for The Gambia. Your pharmacist should point this out, but if you have booked your holiday at the last minute, will you then have time to visit your GP or a travel health clinic to obtain a prescription for the correct antimalarial?

Once you’re in The Gambia (or any malarial destination), bite-prevention is essential — that means covering up with long, loose clothes at night and wearing insect repellent preferably containing DEET (in a mild solution for children).

Once home, it is essential to finish the course of malaria tablets, even though you usually have to take the revolting things for another month, long after your tan has faded. Apparently the best way to get children to take them is to mash the pills up in Nutella or peanut butter. Best way for adults, too, if you ask me.

Fleet Street Clinic (020-7353 5678, www.travellers-health.info); Malaria Reference Laboratory (0906 5508908, £1/min, www.malaria-reference.co.uk).

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