Do I need malaria pills or iodine tables for my summer trip to Lisbon?

ZuidWest, I appreciate your apology but I still don't think I deserved such un-necessary judgement from you or the others who attacked me here. Are you Portuguese by the way? I would find it highly ironic if you or the other posters were Portuguese.

As far as your comment that Portugal has better hygiene standards than China, well, that's your subjective opinion. I could easily say that Minnesota has better hygiene standards than New York or Lose Angeles. That's just an opinion. I stayed in hostels and hotels in both England and Ireland when I a little kid, with my family, where the hygiene standards were very sub par.

I don't know why you would be shocked at me for thinking that Malaria exists in Western Europe, when it clearly does. Just read the news. There have been recent Malaria outbreaks in Greece and even in Portugal; as recent as 2012.

There was a scientific study in 2012 by the Institute of Marine Research that studied some wetlands reed beds in Portugal, after 58 cases of Malaria were reported by Portugal's own National Health Service. There's a quote in the article from Nuno Lacasta who warned that rising temperatures in Portugal will increase the risk for more Malaria cases to occur. I found this information online, and I'm not Portuguese.

I am in my 40s and want to be sure I know what to expect when I travel to Portugal. I do plan to have fun and enjoy the Portuguese food and culture, but I don't appreciate being bullied by anonymous posters on a travel forum for the questions I ask. It's immature behavior on those posters part for making assumptions, and treating those assumptions as facts to base their nasty comments on. Malaria could pop up anywhere there is a warm climate and large body of water. Hawaii has Malaria cases all the time and they are a very civilized island that is overrun by tourists all year round.

I don't appreciate being bullied by anonymous posters on a travel forum for the questions I ask. It's immature behavior on those posters part for making assumptions

Here's how it works. People here are judging the quality of the question . Do you understand that? I don't see anybody doing any bullying. All I see are people expressing disbelief at the question. Why? Because people do have certain standards and expectations regarding what a reasonable question, coming from an adult, ought to be.

Now in post #20 you are making an effort to justify why your question was "reasonable", and at the same time commenting that everyone else is immature.

What can I say? Other people have different standards of what is reasonable.

Post #2 already gave you all the answers you required. I suspected that it wouldn't do much good, because in post #17 you ignore all of the correct answers etc. only to thank "encouragement".

I shall stick with my own conclusion. You are worrying too much, that is your difficulty. It is something for you to think about.

BthDth: well you were one of the posters who attacked me, or should I say, "flamed me," for what you deemed a stupid question. If you are not Portuguese, have never traveled there, have never lived in a country or city/state that has had outbreaks of Malaria, then you have no right to judge the quality of my question as you put it. But you have judged the quality of my question as being poor quality. That's just your opinion. I think your opinion is unreasonable as my question is a perfectly valid and reasonable one that not everyone is going to agree with. After all you are entitled to your opinion, just as I'm entitled to mine. And my opinion is that you are being un-necessarily judgmental as I just came here looking for advice, not expecting to be flamed or verbally criticized or scoffed at for asking my question. That's what I find immature in your post and the others.

ZuidWest, I appreciate your apology but I still don't think I deserved such un-necessary judgement from you or the others who attacked me here. Are you Portuguese by the way? I would find it highly ironic if you or the other posters were Portuguese
ZuidWest is most likely from the same country as undersigned, you know, that little country near Denmark where everybody smokes legal weed and visits prostitutes legally. According to some news sources, that is.
With all due respect, I too thought you were either a troll or an extremely gullible newbie traveller. Sorry, but asking if you need malaria pills in Europe is about the same as asking if you need to bring a bullet-proof vest to the US.

I don't know why you would be shocked at me for thinking that Malaria exists in Western Europe, when it clearly does
Could you please provide a link to that news? I've spent most of the past 3,5 decades in Europe, follow the news quite regularly and never heard about a malaria outbreak here - given that the countries you mention are all popular holiday destinations for people from my country, it would certainly have been all over the news if such a thing would happen. Sure, there may have been one or two isolated cases of malaria, but that doesn't mean any short-term visitor to Lisbon (not really a wetland) would have to stock up on malaria pills.

I am in my 40s and want to be sure I know what to expect when I travel to Portugal
Then why don't you listen when people tell you not to worry?

Like BthDth says...#2 is spot on.

That was enough of an answer...the rest was just disbelief/amusement.

If I asked a question on the US branch about the dangers of malaria in Minnesota, I doubt the type of replies would be much different....

Here is the link to that news report from a newspaper in Portugal about the 58 cases of Malaria in 2012:

http://theportugalnews.com/news/malaria-risk-increases-in-portugal/26356

I'd like a moderator to step in here. I'm still getting flamed by posters in this thread, and I don't deserve to be treated that way at all.

and I don't deserve to be treated that way at all.

you're not being flamed. You've been told that your question is naive, borderline ridiculous. You've also been given a straightforward answer, and now you're trying to argue that your question is reasonable.

Did you even read the link you provided?
it says:
> said this week there were 58 imported+ cases of Malaria in Portugal last year. Although no new cases have been contracted +in the country since 1959

Imported. get it? these are people returning from vacation with malaria and no case have been contracted in the country for 50 years.

you're far more likely to get West Nile virus in Minnesota than Malaria in Portugal.

Get over it.

Suggest not to go to Portugal if you thik it is too dangerous. Try one of the Polar regions, thats sure without microbs or bacteries and contagious sickness - and water is clean too.

Ha aribo, in that country of yours there's also a wild-west area I learnt from Fox-News icon Bill O'Reilly. You are living in that part?

BTW. Welcome back on the board, I saw some rare samples of your wisom the past few weeks.

When I translate Amsterdam in Dutch, is also Amsterdam. A bit irony maybe MN_USA (apologize, no offense!!!) but I tried to translate Bozeman (an airport in the USA) and Google told me: angry man.
Is that true?

I think we all take some valium now.
Peace!

Apparently there's some moderation, kope my (on behalf of) Ban KY Moon (sp?) will cross the borderline.