Awareness and practice of pre-travel health consultation and vaccination among international travelers departing from Addis Abeba Bole international airport.
Creators: name: Jegede, Oluwatosin
Publisher: name: National Academic Digital Repository of Ethiopia
Year: 2019

description: Background: International travellers are exposed to various risks before, during or after travel and many travellers, apart from being at risk of infection from their new destinations also tend to transmit infection from one country to another. Travellers intending to visit a destination are expected to consult a travel medicine clinic or medical practitioner at least 4–8 weeks before the journey for health risk assessment and to update pre-travel vaccinations. Studies have shown that travellers may not seek health advice before travelling and some of them have refused one or more recommended vaccinations for various reasons. Objective: This study assessed the awareness and practice of pre-travel health consultation and vaccination and associated factors among international travellers departing from Ethiopia through the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport. Methodology: A cross-sectional study design was used and the total sample size was 670. A stratified sampling technique was used to ensure representativeness of travellers and travel destinations. The study took four (4) weeks to complete. Pre-travel health consultation and vaccination practices were assessed using a self-administered questionnaire distributed at the departure lounges of the airport. Binary logistic regression test was used to identify significant factors (at p value &lt;0.05) associated with pre-travel vaccination status and multivariable logistic regression was used in fitting the best model. The results were presented in tables (at 95% confidence interval level) and charts as appropriate. Result: A total of 639 questionnaires were analysed giving a response rate of 95.4%. The median age of study participants was 34 years (IQR 28-41). Three hundred and sixty nine (57.7%) travellers were aware about pre-travel health consultation and among these travellers, 215 (33.6%) took pre-travel health consultation before coming to Ethiopia. Also of the total study participants, 580 (90.8%) were aware of pre-travel vaccination out of which 531 (83.1%) took pre-travel vaccinations. The vaccination rate of the three recommended vaccines for all travellers were yellow fever (72.5%), DPT (21.4%) and Influenza (10.8%). Age, marital status, religion, country of residence, awareness about and practice of pre-travel health consultation, and traveller having had their vaccination cards checked in previous trips amongst others were independently associated with vaccination status. After controlling for the effect of other variables; marital status, religion and having had vaccination cards checked in previous trips were associated with vaccination status with p-value of 0.035, &lt;0.001 and 0.002. Conclusion: This study revealed that the level of uptake of recommended vaccinations for all travellers especially DPT and Influenza is low. As less than one-third of travellers had their vaccination cards checked at arrival in Ethiopia, it is pertinent for border health staff to gear up vaccination card inspection at the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport.