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Facemask against viral respiratory infections among Hajj pilgrims: A challenging cluster randomized trial

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posted on 2023-05-20, 21:49 authored by Alfelali, M, Elizabeth HaworthElizabeth Haworth, Barasheed, O, Badahdah, A-M, Bokhary, H, Tashani, M, Azeem, MI, Kok, J, Taylor, J, Barnes, EH, El Bashir, H, Khandaker, G, Holmes, EC, Dwyer, DE, Heron, LG, Wilson, GJ, Booy, R, Rashid, H

Background: In this large-scale cluster-randomized controlled trial (cRCT) we sought to assess the effectiveness of facemasks against viral respiratory infections.

Methods and results: Over three consecutive Hajj seasons (2013, 2014, 2015) pilgrims' tents in Makkah were allocated to 'facemask' or 'no facemask' group. Fifty facemasks were offered to participants in intervention tents, to be worn over four days, and none were offered to participants in control tents. All participants recorded facemask use and respiratory symptoms in health diaries. Nasal swabs were collected from the symptomatic for virus detection by reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. Clinical symptoms and laboratory results were analyzed by 'intention- to-treat' and 'per-protocol'. A total of 7687 adult participants from 318 tents were randomized: 3864 from 149 tents to the intervention group, and 3823 from 169 tents to the control group. Participants were aged 18 to 95 (median 34, mean 37) years, with a male to female ratio of 1:1.2. Overall, respiratory viruses were detected in 277 of 650 (43%) nasal/pharyngeal swabs collected from symptomatic pilgrims. Common viruses were rhinovirus (35.1%), influenza (4.5%) and parainfluenza (1.7%). In the intervention arm, respectively 954 (24.7%) and 1842 (47.7%) participants used facemasks daily and intermittently, while in the control arm, respectively 546 (14.3%) and 1334 (34.9%) used facemasks daily and intermittently. By intention-to-treat analysis, facemask use did not seem to be effective against laboratory-confirmed viral respiratory infections (odds ratio [OR], 1.4; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.9 to 2.1, p = 0.18) nor against clinical respiratory infection (OR, 1.1; 95% CI, 0.9 to 1.4, p = 0.40). Similarly, in a per-protocol analysis, facemask use did not seem to be effective against laboratory-confirmed viral respiratory infections (OR 1.2, 95% CI 0.9-1.7, p = 0.26) nor against clinical respiratory infection (OR 1.3, 95% CI 1.0-1.8, p = 0.06).

Conclusion: This trial was unable to provide conclusive evidence on facemask efficacy against viral respiratory infections most likely due to poor adherence to protocol.

History

Publication title

PloS One

Volume

15

Issue

10

Article number

0240287

Number

0240287

Pagination

1-20

ISSN

1932-6203

Department/School

Menzies Institute for Medical Research

Publisher

Public Library of Science

Place of publication

United States

Rights statement

Copyright 2020 Alfelali et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Determinants of health; Allied health therapies (excl. mental health services); Adolescent health

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