Menikos,
Here's a little something I posted earlier on the Medical forum:
I have been working in malarial areas of west Africa now for 28 years and presently take nothing; I just carry Malarone tablets with me for self-treatment if I happen to develop malarial symptoms and am unable to get to visit a doctor for any reason. I also carry a letter in my wallet saying that I work in West Africa and in case of unconsciousness malaria may be suspected as a cause.
I used to work on a contract where the client (Exxon/Mobil) insisted on anti-malarial prophylaxis. I tried Malarone, but gave it up because it gave me mouth ulcers, excess stomach acid and faint feelings of nausea. After that I took Doxycycline daily. That also had side-effects as I am very fair skinned and it made me much more susceptible to sunburn, but that was preferable to the Malarone. I have friends who have caught malaria here and have been treated with co-Artemether, which also seems to be very effective, but I don't think it's recommended as a prophylactic.
As others have said, the most important thing is totry and avoid being bitten. Make sure that the rooms you sleep in have effective insect screens on the windows, or get a mosquito net to put over your bed. Make sure that bedrooms are sprayed twice a day with a good insecticide. Try to avoid sitting outside just around dusk as that's when you're most likely to get bitten. If you do have to sit out at that time try to wear a long-sleeved shirt, long trousers and socks and spray exposed skin, especially around the neck, wrists and ankles with a repellent containing DEET.
So far, I've been lucky and have never caught malaria (maybe because my regular tipple - Pastis and tonic - repels mosquitos and most other things ), but having once had to spend some time in the London Hospital for Tropical Diseases being treated for another illness, and seen many people being brought in comatose with malaria, it's not something I'd ever treat lightly. I have one friend who lives in Scotland, arrived home for leave to find that his wife was sick with flu. Within 48 hours he had also developed flu-like symptoms and went to visit his doctor. Luckily his doctor knew that he worked in Nigeria and instead of just assuming that he had caught flu sent him for testing for malaria. He had a severe infection and is fortunate that his wise GP decided not to just take his flu symptoms at face value.
I also found the following article which may amuse you, as long as you don't have very smelly feet:
Researchers in Amsterdam found that sweaty feet and smelly Dutch cheese whet the appetites of malaria mosquitos. In a test involving people with washed and unwashed feet, malaria mosquitos showed a clear preference for the scent found on human feet. Furthermore, the Dutch entymologists discovered that these mosquitos were equally attracted to a piece of strongly-scented, ripe Dutch Limburger cheese. According to the scientists this makes sense because Limburger - a pungent, white, soft cheese - smells a lot like the 'toe cheese' found between human toes.
Unfortunately, no matter how much you wash your feet, you'll never be able to completely get rid of the smell because its simply a basic human smell. Hence, washing feet more often is probably not a plausible defense against malaria.
So, what does this study have to do with you? Well, researchers hope that one day they can reproduce the odor artifically and use them in making better mosquito traps.
So till then, keep those feet clean and lay off on the cheese.
There's also quite a useful WHO site emphasising all these points:
http://www.who.int/malaria/docs/heal...lthworkers.htm