What should I do to avoid getting malaria or other infectious diseases?

Some simple precautions will help protect your health while traveling. CDC鈥檚 Travelers鈥?Health provides detailed information on malaria risk by country, prevention information including recommended antimalarial drugs, and health recommendations (e.g., vaccinations) for other diseases. Travelers leaving the United States should: Visit your health care provider 4-6 weeks before foreign travel for any necessary vaccinations, as well as a prescription for an antimalarial drug, if needed. (There are no vaccines against malaria.) Take your antimalarial drug exactly on schedule without missing doses. Wear insect repellent to prevent mosquito and other insect bites. Your insect repellent should contain DEET as its active ingredient. To prevent malaria, wear insect repellent if out of doors between dusk and dawn when the mosquito that transmits malaria is biting. Wear long pants and long-sleeved clothing. Sleep under a mosquito bed net (preferably one that has been treated with insecticide) if you are not living in screened or air-conditioned housing.

Get vaccinated.

You need to take a pill called Aralen (chloroquine phosphate) It needs to be taken weekly from the week before your trip until five weeks after you get back.

Enjoy your trip !!

for malaria if you are travelling to an endemic area [malaria infested area] from a non infested area start taking chloroquine tablets 500 mg once a week at least two weeks before you enter the endemic area and through out your stay and at least two weeks after you have left. once in the endemic area use full sleeves shirts and full trousers specially in the evenings. use mosquito nets [medicated ] as physical barriers and mosquito repellents at night. for other infectious diseases the precautions will be as per the risk but broadly avoid contact with the vector [carrier ] like dogs bats etc for rabies .maintain good personal hygiene and eat hygienic food and safe drinking water.

don't let soil/dirt get into open wounds, boil your water.
and don't do the following when your out of the country:

don't DON'T! eat the salad of death! salads may seem like a healthy and clean supply of food but there not. why? because they've been washed in the water your trying to avoid drinking!

also don't have ice! it's made from 'bad' water
don't eat melons, in some countries there put in dirty water areas to 'swell and look juicy'

don't eat coconut that's been cut open, because people use water on them to keep them from drying out!

and use a mosquito net and a repellent (mosi guard is the best that i found) dotn get a nylon type net because smaller mosquitos and insects get through the smooth holes, and you'll know this because once there in they get to fat to get back out! get a cotton one because the fibers spray out and block the holes. and make sure it's tucked under your bedding at all times!

when your putting on mosquito reppellent make sure that it goes on at least 1 or 2 inches under sleeves/ were exposed skin is and cloathes meet.