International Travel-Related COVID-19 Infection and Outbreak from Wedding Ceremony: First Case in Turkey

Year 2023, , 89 - 94, 26.05.2023

Esra Çınar Tanrıverdi , Zülal Özkurt

https://doi.org/10.56766/ntms.983693

Abstract

SARS-CoV-2 virus is a new and highly contagious respiratory virus that transmission by droplet route. Here we reported international travel-related SARS CoV-2 transmission, and then cause an outbreak by the wedding ceremony. Two index passenger groups include three families who come from Paris to İstanbul to attend the wedding ceremony transmitted COVID-19 infection to Turkey. During the wedding ceremony and later period, they were in close contact with about 350 persons. Clinical pictures COVID-19 infection occurred in 53 relatives. PCR positivity was found in 35 hospitalized cases. The infection spread to four cities in Turkey. The most frequent symptoms of 35 confirmed cases were dizziness (77%), fever (57.1%), joint and muscle pain (57.1%), loss of smell (45.7%) and loss of taste (42.9%), and shore throat (37.1%), dry cough (34.3%), diarrhea (25.7%), rhinorrhea (14.3%) and dyspnea (8.5%). 48 cases (90.5%) were mild-moderate. Severe pneumonia was developed, intensive care and intubation need in five cases (9.4%), and four of them were died (7.5%).
COVID-19 virus can be easily acquired during plane travel and transmitted to other persons with unprotected contact. The infection prevention rules should be strictly applied for the protection from disease. Persons should avoid attend gatherings, even with their family or relatives, and should stay at home. The wedding and other social activities should be postponed after the pandemic.

Keywords

Coronavirus, travel, spread, source, weeding

Project Number

yok

References

• Dousari AS, Moghadam MT, Satarzadeh N. COVID-19 (Coronavirus Disease 2019): A New Coronavirus Disease. Infection and drug resistance. 2020;13:2819.
• Worldometer. CU. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ 2020. Accessed 03.05.202.
• Wilson ME, Chen LH. Travellers give wings to novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV). Oxford University Press; 2020.
• Chinazzi M, Davis JT, Ajelli M, Gioannini C, Litvinova M, Merler S, et al. The effect of travel restrictions on the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Science. 2020;368(6489):395-400.
• Nishiura H, Oshitani H, Kobayashi T, Saito T, Sunagawa T, Matsui T, et al. Closed environments facilitate secondary transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). MedRxiv. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.28.20029272
• Anfinrud P, Stadnytskyi V, Bax CE, Bax A. Visualizing speech-generated oral fluid droplets with laser light scattering. New England Journal of Medicine. 2020;382(21):2061-3.
• Bazant MZ, Bush JW. A guideline to limit indoor airborne transmission of COVID-19. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2021;118(17).
• Li W, Zhang B, Lu J, Liu S, Chang Z, Cao P, et al. The characteristics of household transmission of COVID-19. Clinical Infectious Diseases. 2020. 71(8):1943-1946. doi:10.1093/cid/ciaa450
• Liu Y, Eggo RM, Kucharski AJ. Secondary attack rate and superspreading events for SARS-CoV-2. The Lancet. 2020;395(10227):e47.
• Bi Q, Wu Y, Mei S, Ye C, Zou X, Zhang Z, et al. Epidemiology and transmission of COVID-19 in 391 cases and 1286 of their close contacts in Shenzhen, China: a retrospective cohort study. The Lancet Infectious Diseases. 2020; 20(8):911-919.
• Kwok KO, Wong V, Wei VWI, Wong SYS, Tang JW-T. Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) cases in Hong Kong and implications for further spread. Journal of Infection. 2020; 80(6):671-693.
• Cheng H-Y, Jian S-W, Liu D-P, Ng T-C, Huang W-T, Lin H-H. Contact tracing assessment of COVID-19 transmission dynamics in Taiwan and risk at different exposure periods before and after symptom onset. JAMA Internal Medicine. 2020;180(9):1156-1163.
• Jing Q, Li Y, Ma M, Gu Y, Li K, Ma Y, et al. Contagiousness and secondary attack rate of 2019 novel coronavirus based on cluster epidemics of COVID-19 in Guangzhou. Zhonghua liu xing bing xue za zhi= Zhonghua liuxingbingxue zazhi. 2020;41:E058.
• Al-Tawfiq J, Rodriguez-Morales A. Super-spreading events and contribution to transmission of MERS, SARS, and COVID. J Hosp Infect. 2020;105(2):111-112.
• Ghinai I, Woods S, Ritger KA, McPherson TD, Black SR, Sparrow L, et al. Community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 at two family gatherings—Chicago, Illinois, February–March 2020.
• https://www.ntv.com.tr/turkiye/cenaze-icin-erzuruma-gelip-43-kisiyecorona-virus-bulastirdilar,FwKv1PHvv0mp2vWx6kRfEg. Accessed 02.03.2021
• Wang Z, Galea ER, Grandison A, Ewer J, Jia F. Inflight transmission of COVID-19 based on experimental aerosol dispersion data. Journal of Travel Medicine. 2021;28(4):taab023.
• Burns J, Movsisyan A, Stratil JM, Coenen M, Emmert-Fees KM, Geffert K, et al. Travel‐related control measures to contain the COVID‐19 pandemic: a rapid review. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2020(9).
• Bielecki M, Patel D, Hinkelbein J, Komorowski M, Kester J, Ebrahim S, et al. Reprint of: Air travel and COVID-19 prevention in the pandemic and peri-pandemic period: A narrative review. Travel medicine and infectious disease. 2020;38:101939.
• Khatib AN, Carvalho A-M, Primavesi R, To K, Poirier V. Navigating the risks of flying during COVID-19: a review for safe air travel. Journal of travel medicine. 2020;27(8):taaa212.
• Pavli A, Maltezou HC. COVID-19 vaccine passport for safe resumption of travel. Oxford University Press; 2021;28(4):taab079. doi:10.1093/jtm/taab079