Description
Abstract
Introduction: Geographical movement of people from one area to another poses a threat to the transmission of infectious diseases. Kenya is among the vulnerable countries when it comes to disease transmission since it’s a major transport hub in East Africa yet data about availability and uptake of pre-travel health services is limited.
Method: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted to determine uptake of pre-travel health services. Systematic sampling method was used to get a sample among travellers at the waiting lounge prior to departure to get a sample size of 384 participants while 4 key informants were chosen purposively. A self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. Data analysis methods results were presented in form of tables, graphs, charts and text.
Results: Majority of the respondents (70.6%) knew at least one health service offered to international travellers in Kenya. The most sought after pre-travel health service was vaccination (70.97%) while very few (13.93%) travellers sought pre-travel health advice on how to stay healthy while abroad. Majority of travellers were positive about pre-travel health services. Port health department focuses more on international arrivals as opposed to departures health there are no functional travel health clinics.
Conclusion: It’s important for the government to develop policies, guidelines and structures that will ensure pre-travel health services are received by travellers prior to departure since from the study the government pays little attention to departing international travellers. Travel clinics need to be set up to increase uptake of pre-travel health services and further research conducted.
Key words
Airport
Immunization *
International travellers
Kenya
Pre-travel health
Vaccine
