Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. Mar 16, 2017; 5(3): 102-111
Published online Mar 16, 2017. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v5.i3.102
Surveillance of Australian Hajj pilgrims for carriage of potentially pathogenic bacteria: Data from two pilot studies
Mohammad Irfan Azeem, Mohamed Tashani, Al-Mamoon Badahdah, Leon Heron, Kristen Pedersen, Neisha Jeoffreys, Jen Kok, Elizabeth Haworth, Dominic E Dwyer, Grant Hill-Cawthorne, Harunor Rashid, Robert Booy
Mohammad Irfan Azeem, Mohamed Tashani, Al-Mamoon Badahdah, Leon Heron, Harunor Rashid, Robert Booy, National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases, Kids Research Institute, the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Sydney 2145, Australia
Mohammad Irfan Azeem, Mohamed Tashani, Al-Mamoon Badahdah, Dominic E Dwyer, Harunor Rashid, Robert Booy, the Discipline of Child and Adolescent Health, Sydney Medical School, the University of Sydney, Sydney 2145, Australia
Mohammad Irfan Azeem, Al-Mamoon Badahdah, Jen Kok, Dominic E Dwyer, Grant Hill-Cawthorne, Harunor Rashid, Robert Booy, Marie Bashir Institute for Infectious Diseases and Biosecurity, the University of Sydney, Sydney 2006, Australia
Al-Mamoon Badahdah, Department of Family and Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine in Rabigh, King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah 21589, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
Kristen Pedersen, Neisha Jeoffreys, Jen Kok, Elizabeth Haworth, Dominic E Dwyer, Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology Laboratory Services, Institute of Clinical Pathology and Medical Research, Pathology West, Westmead Hospital, Sydney 2145, Australia
Elizabeth Haworth, Menzies Research Institute Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania 7000, Australia
Grant Hill-Cawthorne, School of Public Health, the University of Sydney, Sydney 2006, Australia
Robert Booy, World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Mass Gatherings and High Consequence/High Visibility Events, Flinders University, Adelaide 5001, Australia
Author contributions: Azeem MI, Heron L, Rashid H and Booy R conceived the study and designed the study protocol; Azeem MI and Tashani M carried out data collection; Azeem MI, Pedersen K, Jeoffreys N and Kok J carried out the laboratory work, analysis and interpretation of these data; Azeem MI, Badahdah AM and Rashid H drafted the manuscript; Azeem MI, Kok J, Haworth E, Dwyer DE, Hill-Cawthorne G, Rashid H and Booy R critically revised the manuscript for intellectual content; all authors read and approved the final manuscript; Booy R is the guarantor of the paper.
Institutional review board statement: Ethics approval was granted by the Hunter New England Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC), Australia (Ref: HREC/13/HNE/265). To verify the vaccination records of pilgrims, data were cross-checked with another ongoing trial by our team with a separate ethics approval from the Hunter New England HREC (Ref13/05/15/3.05).
Informed consent statement: All study participants provided informed written consent prior to study enrolment.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Leon Heron and Robert Booy have received funding from Baxter, CSL, GSK, Merck, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, and Sanofi Pasteur for the conduct of sponsored research, travel to present at conferences or consultancy work; all funding received is directed to research accounts at the Children’s Hospital at Westmead. Dr. Harunor Rashid has received fees from Pfizer and Novartis for consulting or serving on an advisory board. The other authors have declared no conflict of interest in relation to this work.
Data sharing statement: There are no additional data available.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Mr. Mohammad Irfan Azeem, National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance of Vaccine Preventable Diseases, Kids Research Institute, the Children’s Hospital at Westmead, Cnr Hawkesbury Rd and Hainsworth St., Locked Bag 4001, Sydney 2145, Australia. mohammadirfan.azeem@health.nsw.gov.au
Telephone: +61-42-1777439 Fax: +61-29-8451418
Received: November 11, 2016
Peer-review started: November 13, 2016
First decision: December 1, 2016
Revised: December 14, 2016
Accepted: January 2, 2017
Article in press: January 3, 2017
Published online: March 16, 2017
Core Tip

Core tip: We conducted this pilot study to understand the impact of mass gatherings on pharyngeal carriage of potentially pathogenic bacteria and to assess the burden of pathogenic microorganisms resistant to antimicrobial agents among travellers returning to Australia following an overseas travel. This study demonstrates that a larger study is feasible and important to inform public health measures to prevent the transmission and limit emergence of antimicrobial resistant pathogens at mass gathering events such as the annual Hajj pilgrimage.