Acute mountain sickness and driving at high altitude : caution is required due to the sudden onset of dysfunction. [Letter]

Recent experience in August 2004 with a tour group of 30 travelling in cars from Bejing via the northern Silk Road to Urumqi, across the Taklimakan desert to Golmud and then to Lhasa, highlights the difficulties to be faced with acute mountain sickness (AMS). As susceptibility to mountain sickness cannot be forecast, those on self-drive tours have to be wary of its possible effects. (Author/publisher)