CAMP VIPER, Iraq - With the weather warming, American troops have another indigenous enemy to contend with in Iraq - bugs.
Flies, sand gnats and beetles are emerging in the southern Iraqi desert and the marshlands south of the Euphrates River. The bugs seem bigger, nastier and more aggressive in the area, ignoring repeated swats and crawling on faces, necks and arms over and over again.
The insect factor will make medical management even more complicated in the war theater. On Wednesday, three Navy hospital corpsmen visited the Augusta-based 319th Transportation Company's camp inside Camp Viper - dubbed Camp Black Gold by the unit's captain - and told soldiers that malaria season had started. Every day now, they must take a blue doxycycline capsule, an antibiotic, to prevent the disease.
Malaria is spread by mosquitoes, which inject saliva into the skin of their prey to get the blood flowing. The saliva can contain the parasite that causes malaria, said Petty Officer 2nd Class Jessica Baken, a hospital corpsman.
The side effects of doxycycline include nausea, photosensitivity, diarrhea and motion sickness, the Navy medic said.
Since arriving in the Middle East, the fuel-hauling truck drivers of the 319th already have been coping with their smallpox vaccinations. The vaccine is a live virus that leaves a sore on the arm which must be kept bandaged and monitored until the scab falls off. Old bandages must be disposed of in a biohazard container or burned.
They also are midway through their anthrax vaccine regimen, which involves shots that are more painful than the smallpox vaccine but less trouble to manage afterward.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Baken told the soldiers that when they leave the region, they must continue taking the pills for 30 days to be sure malaria doesn't develop.
She also said that if they skip a pill, they risk getting sick.
"I know you guys go out on the road for a week at a time," she said. "Just make sure you take a 14-day supply wherever you go."
Soldiers asked whether the pills would interfere with blood-pressure medicine or birth-control pills. It shouldn't affect the former, but will the latter, the corpsmen said.
"We're not going to come down with kidney failure, are we?" asked Master Sgt. Walter Huewitt, 38, of Augusta.
"You can from getting malaria," answered Lt. Robin Byrd, a doctor in preventive medicine for the Navy.
Petty Officer 2nd Class Baken assured the group that the pills they will take are not the same malaria pills some have blamed after soldiers returned from combat in Afghanistan and killing their wives. Those pills were mefloquine and weren't the cause of the killings anyway, she said.
Doxycycline pills aren't a failsafe against malaria, the soldiers were told. They were advised to stock up on insect repellent and break out their mosquito nets.
The corpsmen also said the unit soon will receive packets of pyridostigmine bromide pills, a pre-treatment against the nerve agent soman.
If commanders believe a nerve agent attack is imminent, troops will be ordered to take the pills, Petty Officer 2nd Class Baken said. Sample packets were passed around for the soldiers to look at.
For 1st Sgt. Willie Lynch, 45, of Hephzibah, it brought back memories of the Persian Gulf War. His unit was ordered to take the pills during Desert Storm, he said.
"I just threw them away," he said. "I wasn't taking those things."
In the years after the war, pyridostigmine bromide pills were blamed for some of the mysterious illnesses that overcame veterans. The drug wasn't approved by the Food and Drug Administration for its intended use during the gulf war, but the Department of Defense received special permission from the FDA to administer it. Later, Congress passed a law saying that only the president can order troops to take a non-FDA-approved drug without their consent.
The FDA approved the pills as a pre-treatment against soman in February.
First Sgt. Lynch said he will take them this time only if his unit moves farther north and he's sure he's under a chemical attack.
