Avoiding mosquito bites should be part of your life in the tropics.
By the way, this is a refresh of an article I posted in 2012, with new content added.
Where we live in Penang we used to have mosquitoes year round. Neighbours in our street have been afflicted with dengue. However, they took no precautions at all. Malaysian rarely take any precautions to avoid bites. But every year mosquitoes have become less of a problem. I will expound on this later.
The danger of mosquitoes
The main danger with mosquitoes is that they are a vector (I’ve always wanted to use that word) for malaria and dengue fever. And other diseases, but these are the main ones in Malaysia.
If a mosquito of a certain type bites someone who has either of these they will become a carrier. Then if the mosquito bites someone else the person bitten may contract the disease.
Most carriers are apparently illegal immigrants. They bring it with them to Malaysia and naturally do no have their health checked. It’s actually quite unlikely you will stay or go to the same places as them. A possible exception is construction workers building a condo near where you are. Nevertheless, mosquitoes do not travel very far.
Currently, in 2019, we can go days or even weeks without seeing a mosquito outside our home. When we first moved to our house, almost nine years ago, they were constantly outside, and thus sometimes got inside as well, despite carefully following all the correct procedures. Thus mosquitoes bit us all too frequently.
Avoiding mosquito bites in general
Tropical Expat 