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05:58 AM
Bikram Vohra
JournalismPakistan.com
July 3, 2013
Everybody is going on a summer holiday. Well, almost everyone save those who have just discovered an expired visa, an outdated passport, a missing ID, whatever and now are wondering how it happened and how could we be so stupid. Happens all the time, five members in a family and only four valid passports, party cancelled.
Let me add a new one to the list of fun-worries (my word for hassles on a holiday). Medicines. In a drug-infested world more nations are getting rigid about meds and their ingredients. So be sure you take your official prescriptions with you. You don’t need the tension of carrying ‘contraband’ innocently or otherwise into another country. And if you are carrying medicines for other people make sure you know what they contain. Ask the pharmacist. Like codeine, for example, over the counter in India but not so in the GCC.
And now to the point. Never carry too much and keep meds in your hand luggage. Logic? In the summer that ‘store in a cool, dry place’ legend on the strips or bottles becomes a joke when you wrap it in four layers of clothes and the suitcase bakes on the tarmac or holding area in an airport for hours. It may be dark but it isn’t cool, in any sense of the word.
I don’t know if this is medically true but one doc says the efficacy of the meds can be reduced dramatically if they are kept in heat beyond recommended parameters.
We never think of such things, I mean it has never crossed my mind that my meds in the suitcase could be doing half the job because I didn’t put the couple of strips into my hand baggage. I don’t want to be half well. Especially when some of the meds you buy are in a refrigerator and that is why they don’t take them back once they leave the shop.
Oh yes, and be smart, never bring back more than a month’s supply of any medicine, you are asking for trouble.
Have a good holiday and hope that your sea-view hotel room doesn’t need to lean out too far off the balcony for you to spot.
(The writer is a Senior Editorial Advisor of Khaleej Times and the paper’s former Editor. He has also been the Editor of Gulf News, Gulf Today, Emirates Today and Bahrain Tribune)
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