Influenza among U.K. Pilgrims to Hajj, 2003

摘要

To the Editor: Each year, approx-imately 2 million Muslims travel fromall over the world to participate inhajj. Approximately 22,000 pilgrimstravel from the United Kingdom toMakkah, Saudi Arabia; of those,approximately 1,000 person reside inthe east end of London. In the past,infectious diseases research conduct-ed during these pilgrimages focusedon meningococcal disease because ofoutbreaks associated with the hajj.Since 2000, the dates of the hajj havebeen moved back into the winter sea-son; this time change could lead to aseasonal increase in outbreaks of res-piratory infections caused by influen-za and other viruses. From 1991 to1992, influenza A was a commoncause of respiratory infection in pil-grims tested in Makkah (1). However,the incidence rate of influenza amongpilgrims from Europe is not well-known. A previous study of influenza-like illness among pilgrims fromPakistan reported rates of 36% ininfluenza-vaccinated pilgrims and62% in influenza-nonvaccinated pil-grims; these results were based onclinical endpoints without microbio-logic confirmation (2)