Sydney University. Australia: University of Sydney researchers are working on a project to find the
best way of stopping the spread of potentially fatal infectious
respiratory disease among the two million pilgrims who converge on Mecca
each year for Hajj.
More than 100 people have died from Middle
East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), a new form of
coronavirus which first appeared in 2012 in Saudi Arabia. Health care
workers and Umrah (minor pilgrimage) performers are particularly at
risk.
The team's research focus is on the effectiveness of
preventive measures such as facemasks, hand hygiene, and bacterial and
viral vaccines. Working in collaboration with the Saudi Arabian Ministry
of Health and the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques Institute for Hajj
and Umrah Research at Umm Al-Qura University, the researchers trained
more than 200 volunteer Saudi health care workers and recruited 2,300
participants from Australia and the Gulf region to take part in the
project.
The team includes a group of University of Sydney
researchers - Dr Osamah Barasheed, Dr Mohamed Tashani, Dr Mohammad
Alfelali, Mr Mohammad Irfan Azeem, Ms Amani Alqahtani, Dr Almamoon
Badahdah and Dr Hamid Bokhary - who are now conducting a follow-up study
in different parts of Sydney.
Others involved were Professor
Tariq Ahmed Madani, Chief Advisor to the Saudi Arabian Ministry of
Health, Professor Atif Asghar, Dean of the Two Holy Mosques Institute
for Hajj and Umrah Research at Umm Al-Qura University, Mr Hatim Qadi,
advisor to the Hajj Minister, and Mr Adel Fakeih, Saudi Arabian Health
Minister.
A novel part of this year's trial was to use a smart
phone application in data collection which was devised by Nasser Dhim, a
PhD candidate in the School of Public Health at Sydney.
Dr
Barasheed said: "Influenza vaccine uptake among Australian Hajj pilgrims
seems satisfactory and has increased in the last three years to 87 per
cent. Interestingly, this study indicated that recommendations of
religious leaders like imams and tour group leaders were important in
enhancing the uptake of influenza vaccine among Australian pilgrims.
"No
MERS-CoV was detected in any sample - we found that rhinovirus was the
commonest cause of influenza-like illnesses among Hajj pilgrims."
The
research is funded by the Qatar National Research Fund and is being
supervised by senior researchers and epidemiologists from the University
of Sydney including Dr Harunor Rashid, Professor Robert Booy, Professor
Dominic Dwyer, Dr Leon Heron and Professor Edward Holmes.