Evaluation of a web-based self-reporting method for monitoring international passengers returning from an area of emerging infection

Highlights • Several severe and highly communicable infectious diseases emerged in the world over the past two decades. • No data is available on how to limit the spread of these emergent infectious diseases. • Our study, performed in Guadeloupe (French West Indies), assessed a new strategy in which each traveler would actively participate via a web-based self-administered questionnaire. • Our results suggest that this method would be of limited interest for health monitoring of international travelers; better performance might be achieved in the setting of an international health crisis.
Objectives Emerging infectious diseases are a public health issue of international concern. Identifying methods to limit their expansion is essential. We assessed the feasibility of a screening strategy in which each traveler would actively participate in the screening process after an intercontinental flight by reporting their own health status via a web-based self-administered questionnaire. Patients and methods In 2015 and 2017, we invited passengers arriving at or departing from Pointe-à-Pitre international airport to answer an online health questionnaire during the four days following their arrival from or at Paris-Orly international airport. SPIRE 1 was intended for passengers arriving at Pointe-à-Pitre and was conceived as a pilot study. SPIRE 2 was an improved version of SPIRE 1 and consisted in three parts, which permitted to further assess the benefits of pre-flight request and email follow-up. Endpoints were the connection rates and response rates to online health questionnaire. Results For SPIRE 1, 4/1038 travelers (0.4%) completed the two steps of the online health questionnaire. In SPIRE 2, response rates ranged from 3/1059 (0.3%) to 19/819 (2.3%). Response rates were significantly better when passengers were approached before their flight. Conclusions The yield of an online health questionnaire was unexpectedly low.