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Infection Tracking in Travellers. The Project Aims to Identify Profiles of Travel-associated Illness and to Follow up on Long-term Sequelae of Arboviral Infections and Malaria

NCT ID: NCT04672577

Last Updated: 2020-12-17

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

NOT_YET_RECRUITING

Total Enrollment

10000 participants

Study Classification

OBSERVATIONAL

Study Start Date

2021-01-30

Study Completion Date

2025-12-31

Brief Summary

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The investigators hypothesize that sex, age, area of exposure and purpose of travel are associated with different travel-related infections. The investigators also hypothesize that certain infections will have long-term sequelae.

Health-data will be collected from travellers from Switzerland and Europe. The project starts with a pilot study for 50 travellers, followed by the recruiting of 10,000 travellers. The data collection will be via a mobile App (ITIT). The ITIT App will collect active data from travellers. The participants will download the App after signing an electronic consent form and completing a baseline questionnaire. Then the travellers will answer a short daily questionnaire about illness symptoms during travel. The ITIT App will also collect passive data (GPS localisation, environmental and weather data). The project will provide real-time data on travel-related infections and profile travel illness by age, sex and purpose of travel and also identify outbreaks.

Detailed Description

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International travel is growing exponentially. Globally, there will be a projected 1.8 billion traveller arrivals in 2030. Current surveillance of travellers' health is top-down (i.e., clinicians/laboratories report illness) and only a small proportion of illness events are captured. More data are needed on the types of infections acquired by different groups who have varying purposes of travel such as business/corporate travellers, those visiting friends and relatives (VFR), leisure/tourist travellers and mass gathering event (Hajj, Olympics, World Cup) attendees. More data are needed to profile infections in travellers according to age and sex as men and women have different infection susceptibilities. Infectious diseases, in particular the spread of malaria and "arboviral infections",(i.e. viruses such as dengue) pose major threats with changing epidemiology influenced by climate, environmental factors and human mobility. The extent and impact of these infections on travellers' health and their long-term sequelae have scarcely been evaluated. The collected data will allow the profiling of infections in travellers according to purpose of travel and according to age and sex. Men and women have different infection susceptibilities but there is just one study on this theme in the context of travel medicine Infectious diseases, in particular the spread of malaria and "arboviral infections", i.e. viruses such as dengue, chikungunya and Zika pose major threats with changing areas of transmission influenced by climate and mobility. Although airline statistics are available on traveller numbers, the volume of ill, returning, possibly viremic travellers entering areas, where susceptible vectors exist has never been quantified. The situation of a twin presence of viremic travellers and competent Aedes vectors may lead to the onward transmission of arboviral infections. The ITIT project, evaluating in-travel and post-travel illness profiles, coupled with geo-location and meteorological data, will yield the granular data needed for personalized travel medicine. This is important given the heterogenicity and increasing volume of global travellers. The project has the support of the World Health Organization (WHO). Since the data will be collected anonymously via a questionnaire on the designed mobile App and the study is non-interventional, the risk category for this project is minimal (A).

Conditions

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Travel-Related Illness Malaria Dengue Chikungunya Zika SARS-CoV Infection MERS Influenza Diarrhea

Study Design

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Observational Model Type

COHORT

Study Time Perspective

PROSPECTIVE

Study Groups

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Arboviral infection or malaria positive cohort

Observational study

Intervention Type OTHER

No intervention is planned

Interventions

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Observational study

No intervention is planned

Intervention Type OTHER

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

1. travellers who cross international borders
2. adults (over 18 years old)
3. those traveling for more than 2 days and less than 8 weeks

Exclusion Criteria

1. Non travellers (not crossing international borders)
2. Minors (under 18 years old)
3. those traveling for less than 2 days and longer than 8 weeks
Minimum Eligible Age

18 Years

Maximum Eligible Age

90 Years

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Sponsors

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ETH Zurich

OTHER

Sponsor Role collaborator

Swiss Tropical & Public Health Institute

OTHER

Sponsor Role collaborator

University Hospital, Geneva

OTHER

Sponsor Role collaborator

Center for Primary Care and Public Health (Unisante), University of Lausanne, Switzerland

OTHER

Sponsor Role collaborator

Patricia Schlagenhauf

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Patricia Schlagenhauf

Prof. Dr.

Responsibility Role SPONSOR_INVESTIGATOR

Locations

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Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Prevention Institute at the University of Zurich

Zurich, , Switzerland

Site Status

Countries

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Switzerland

Facility Contacts

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Thibault Lovey

Role: primary

References

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Farnham A, Blanke U, Stone E, Puhan MA, Hatz C. Travel medicine and mHealth technology: a study using smartphones to collect health data during travel. J Travel Med. 2016 Sep 4;23(6):taw056. doi: 10.1093/jtm/taw056. Print 2016 Jun.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 27592821 (View on PubMed)

Findlater A, Moineddin R, Kain D, Yang J, Wang X, Lai S, Khan K, Bogoch II. The use of air travel data for predicting dengue importation to China: A modelling study. Travel Med Infect Dis. 2019 Sep-Oct;31:101446. doi: 10.1016/j.tmaid.2019.07.002. Epub 2019 Jul 5.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 31284067 (View on PubMed)

Leta S, Beyene TJ, De Clercq EM, Amenu K, Kraemer MUG, Revie CW. Global risk mapping for major diseases transmitted by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus. Int J Infect Dis. 2018 Feb;67:25-35. doi: 10.1016/j.ijid.2017.11.026. Epub 2017 Nov 28.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 29196275 (View on PubMed)

Ponce C, Dolea C. The World Health Organisation (WHO) and International Travel and Health: New collaborative, evidence-based and digital directions. Travel Med Infect Dis. 2019 Jan-Feb;27:1. doi: 10.1016/j.tmaid.2019.01.012. Epub 2019 Jan 17. No abstract available.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 30660556 (View on PubMed)

Schlagenhauf P, Chen LH, Wilson ME, Freedman DO, Tcheng D, Schwartz E, Pandey P, Weber R, Nadal D, Berger C, von Sonnenburg F, Keystone J, Leder K; GeoSentinel Surveillance Network. Sex and gender differences in travel-associated disease. Clin Infect Dis. 2010 Mar 15;50(6):826-32. doi: 10.1086/650575.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 20156059 (View on PubMed)

Schlagenhauf P, Tschopp A, Johnson R, Nothdurft HD, Beck B, Schwartz E, Herold M, Krebs B, Veit O, Allwinn R, Steffen R. Tolerability of malaria chemoprophylaxis in non-immune travellers to sub-Saharan Africa: multicentre, randomised, double blind, four arm study. BMJ. 2003 Nov 8;327(7423):1078. doi: 10.1136/bmj.327.7423.1078.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 14604928 (View on PubMed)

Tomasello D, Schlagenhauf P. Chikungunya and dengue autochthonous cases in Europe, 2007-2012. Travel Med Infect Dis. 2013 Sep-Oct;11(5):274-84. doi: 10.1016/j.tmaid.2013.07.006. Epub 2013 Aug 17.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 23962447 (View on PubMed)

Lovey T, Hedrich N, Grobusch MP, Bernhard J, Schlagenhauf P; ITIT Global Network. Surveillance of global, travel-related illness using a novel app: a multivariable, cross-sectional study. BMJ Open. 2024 Jul 27;14(7):e083065. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2023-083065.

Reference Type DERIVED
PMID: 39067885 (View on PubMed)

Other Identifiers

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ITIT

Identifier Type: -

Identifier Source: org_study_id