Detection of Respiratory Viruses Among Pilgrims in Saudi Arabia During the Time of a Declared Influenza A(H1N1) Pandemic

Abstract

We found very low pandemic influenza A(H1N1) prevalence among arriving pilgrims and no evidence that amplification of transmission had occurred among departing pilgrims.

Influenza Vaccination Among Australian Hajj Pilgrims: Uptake, Attitudes, and Barriers

“…Memish and colleagues reported that lack of awareness and knowledge about the access to vaccine were the two most important reasons for not receiving seasonal influenza vaccine among international pilgrims during the Hajj 2009. 8 Misperceptions about pandemic influenza vaccine have also been reported among health care workers (HCWs) deployed at Hajj in 2009 when over half refused the vaccine mainly because of a belief that pandemic influenza was not fatal and there were toxic preservatives in the vaccine. 28 In a previous survey conducted among Asia-Pacific travelers including Australians, 27% believed that they were not at risk of influenza and another 14% thought that influenza vaccine was not important.…”

Australian Hajj pilgrims' infection control beliefs and practices: Insight with implications for public health approaches

“…To date only two quantitative studies have attempted to identify the reason behind lack uptake of vaccines. These studies found lack of vaccination knowledge and relay in body immunity associated with poor uptake of influenza vaccine [10,15]. Neither study explored the reasons underpinning these low rates of uptake and knowledge in any depth.…”

Vaccinations against respiratory tract infections at Hajj

“…This low coverage could result from misperceptions surrounding the influenza vaccine. Lack of awareness and access to vaccination were the two most important factors in influenza vaccine refusal among pilgrims in a large study involving a considerable proportion of Saudi Arabian pilgrims [27]. Misperceptions are also reported among Australian Hajj pilgrims; for example, respectively 33% and 26% of the Australian pilgrims who reported not receiving influenza vaccine in 2011 and 2012 claimed to have relied on "natural immunity" [19].…”

“…In a large crosssectional study conducted at King Abdulaziz International Airport in 2009, Memish et al. reported the uptake of influenza vaccine to be 22.9% [27]. Three additional studies were conducted in 2010 with the reported vaccination rate to be ranging from 26.9%…”

“…Of these, 17 studies reported on influenza vaccine uptake [9,[11][12][13]15,[17][18][19][20][26][27][28]35,45,[47][48][49], with the remaining 17 studies additionally assessing influenza vaccine effectiveness [10,14,16,[21][22][23][24][25][29][30][31][32][33][34]36,44,46].…”