Advice on malaria and yellow fever prevention provided at travel agencies in Cuzco, Peru

• Published in: Journal of travel medicine 2015-01, Vol.22 (1), p.26-30
• Main Authors: Villanueva-Meyer, Pablo G, Garcia-Jasso, Carlos A, Springer, Chelsea A, Lane, Jenna K, Su, Bonny S, Hidalgo, Idania S, Goodrich, Mary R, Deichsel, Emily L, White, Jr, A C, Cabada, Miguel M
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Antimalarials - therapeutic use; Cross-Sectional Studies; Disease prevention; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Humans; Malaria; Malaria - epidemiology; Malaria - prevention & control; Peru; Risk Factors; Surveys and Questionnaires; Travel; Travel agencies; Travel medicine; Yellow Fever - epidemiology; Yellow Fever - prevention & control; Yellow Fever Vaccine - therapeutic use
• ISSN: 1195-1982; 1708-8305
• DOI: 10.1111/jtm.12149

Travelers receive medical advice from a variety of sources, including travel agencies. The aim of this study is to describe the quality of pre-travel advice provided by travel agencies in Cuzco to travelers interested in visiting malaria and yellow fever endemic areas. Trained medical students posed as tourists and visited travel agencies in Cuzco requesting travel advice for a trip to the southern Amazon of Peru, recording advice regarding risk and prevention of malaria and yellow fever. A total of 163 registered travel agencies were included in the study. The mean proposed tour duration was 6.8 days (±1.4 days) with a median time to departure of 3 days and a median tour cost of 805 US dollars (USD) [interquartile range (IQR) 580-1,095]. Overall, 45% employees failed to mention the risk for any illness. Eighteen percent of the employees acknowledged risk of malaria and 53% risk of yellow fever. However, 36% denied malaria risk and 2% denied risk of yellow fever in the region. The price of tours from travel agencies that did not mention any health risk was significantly lower [1,009.6 ± 500.5 vs 783.9 ± 402 USD, t (152) = 3, p