Protective Measures Against Acute Respiratory Symptoms in French Pilgrims Participating in the Hajj of 2009: Table 1

Abstract

Among a cohort of 274 French pilgrims participating in the 2009 Hajj, 77.4% used hand disinfectant, 89.8% used disposable handkerchiefs, and 79.6% used face masks; 97.4% were vaccinated against seasonal flu, 5.8% against H1N1, and 31.4% against pneumococcus. Influenza vaccine and face mask use did not significantly reduce respiratory symptoms.

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

“…17,18 The coverage rate of 89% in 2012 among Australian Hajj pilgrims compares well with the vaccination rate among the Iranian pilgrims (86%-98%) for the last few years, and French (97%) and domestic Saudi pilgrims (94%) for the 2009 Hajj. 7,11,13,19,20 It was higher than among US (63%) and Malaysian (73%) pilgrims. 6,21 A cross-sectional survey conducted several years ago among Asia-Pacific travelers, including Australians, showed that only 3% of Western (ie, those from Australia, New Zealand, Europe, and North America) travelers received influenza vaccine for their trip and 11% received the vaccine in previous years.…”

“…4,5 Despite this yearly recommendation, influenza vaccine uptake rate among Hajj pilgrims has varied by country and by year (Table 1). [6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13] There are no comprehensive official data on influenza vaccination rate among Australian Hajj pilgrims or other travelers. A prospective study that assessed the incidence and risk factors for acute respiratory illnesses and influenza infections among Australian travelers between August 2007 and January 2010, reported only 49% influenza vaccine uptake prior to their trip to Asia, and only 56% travelers admitted receiving the vaccine in the 3 years before travel.…”

Vaccinations against respiratory tract infections at Hajj

“…[14,21,23,28,34,35,48]. Five studies conducted between 2005 and 2013 involved French pilgrims [20,24,[44][45][46]; 3 of these conducted by Gautret et al [24,44,46] [24,44,46]. Subsequently, the team reported a lower uptake of 45.6% during the 2012 Hajj [20].…”

“…Vaccine effectiveness against self-reported respiratory symptoms was reported in 3 studies [23,36,46]. None of these found a significant association between influenza vaccination and a reduction in respiratory symptoms [23,36,46].…”

“…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].…”