Travellers using web-sites to book trips to high risk regions should be given on-line warnings about malaria, doctors urged today.
Several Britons have succumbed to the disease after using travel web-sites, they report.
All had taken so-called "winter sun" holidays to The Gambia – and two had made last-minute bookings, the doctors report in the British Medical Journal.
As a result they had failed to take anti-malaria treatment and succumbed to the disease, which is rife in The Gambia.
In 2009 some 57 holiday-makers contracted the disease and more than 800 patients were treated in Britain as a result of succumbing in West Africa, they report. This was more than half the annual toll of cases, which reached 1,395.
Dr John Widdrington, a specialist registrar in infectious diseases in Middlesbrough, UK, writes: "A warning about the need to allow sufficient time to organise these interventions may reduce the particular risk to individuals making late bookings."
He calls for travel web-sites to carry "explicit" warnings.
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