Take Necessary Precautions When Travelling
Your natural immune system would normally be conditioned to handle the virus and bacteria in your local area or the areas you frequently go to. However, when travelling to locations that you are not familiar with, it is possible for you to encounter virus and bacteria that your immune system would find new and unfamiliar. This raises the possibility that your immune system would not be ready to overcome these bugs.
When going to new places or new environments, take special precautions with regard to food sanitation. Contaminated food or water can make you sick more easily because of the unfamiliarity of the virus or bacteria you are encountering.
Observe the following practices when going to unfamiliar areas:
1. Bottled Drinks – Drink bottled or canned beverages, and make sure they are unopened and sealed when handed to you. If you drink straight from the bottle or can, make sure you clean the bottle or can before allowing it to touch your lips.
2. Do Not Use Ice – If you want your drink cold, make sure to chill it in its container. Do not use ice in your drinks. You may know that your drink itself is safe, but you have no assurance of the source of the water that was frozen to make the ice. If the water was contaminated, whatever was frozen in it can become potent again once thawed.
3. Use Bottled Water When Brushing Teeth – Let only clean bottled water touch your toothbrush and your mouth (and your cup, if you use one when brushing teeth). Some people think that since the water is just used to wash the toothbrush, and not actually ingested, it is safe. It is actually not. And spitting the water out does not render you safe from microbes that cause viral and bacterial gastroenteritis. The moment the microbes in the water touch your toothbrush or cup, these items become contaminated, ready to transmit the microbes to you. When you put these items in your mouth, or when you put the water in your mouth to gargle, the microbes transfer into your mouth. If you spit the water, some microbes still remain stuck in your mouth, and make their way to your stomach.
4. Avoid Raw Food – Raw food such as peeled fruits, vegetables and salads would have been handled by human hands. The fact that they have not been cooked means whatever bacteria or viruses transferred from those hands to the food would not have been eliminated by a cooking process.
5. Do Not Eat Undercooked Meat And Fish – Raw meat and fish contain microbes. The heat in a proper cooking process kills and destroys these disease-causing microbes. Undercooked meat and fish might still contain the microbes and parasites that could make you sick with stomach flu or food poisoning.
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