Travel Health Knowledge and Perception of Foreign Backpackers Traveling in Bali

International travel to a country has potentially carry health risks for travelers, including backpackers. To date, little is known about Travel Health knowledge and perception among foreign backpackers traveling to Bali. This study aimed to explore the level of knowledge and perception, as well as health information that backpackers need in their destination, Bali. This was a descriptive cross-sectional study, conducted from December 2017 to January 2018 in Bali. This study involved 133 backpackers, taken by convenience sampling technique. Data were collected using a self-administered questionnaire and were analysed descriptively. The results showed that backpackers’ knowledge was inadequate, especially to common diseases or health problems that occurred to travelers in Bali. There were 94.74% have low knowledge about rabies, 48.87% have less knowledge about methanol poisoning and 58.65% have low knowledge about diarrhoea. A total of 69.18% backpackers have a perception that they were not prone to being exposed to diseases and health problems in Bali and 36.84% were not aware that they had to seek health information before traveling to Bali. Almost all stated that they needed complete, destination-specific health information. It is necessary to increase backpackers’ knowledge and awareness regarding Travel Health at the destination. The development of integrated health promotion media about travel health in Bali, in form of web-based or application-based is one of the strategies to consider.

The Implementation of Early Detection in Tuberculosis Contact Investigation to Improve Case Finding

The early detection of Tuberculosis (TB) among TB contacts is a strategy to find TB cases in earlier stage and to stop the transmission. This study aimed to assess the implementation of early detection in TB contact investigation to improve TB case finding. This was an operational research study conducted in Badung District, Bali, Indonesia. The samples were TB contacts, identified in the period July through September (third quarter) 2017. Contacts were household members who were living and sharing a room at least for 3 months with infectious TB patients and were not previously diagnosed with TB. Data were collected through face-to-face interview using structured questionnaires and registration reviews using a checklist. We visited 124 TB patients and successfully identified 498 contacts, thus the ratio of contacts to cases is 4:1. All TB contacts were invited to participate in TB screening and evaluation program. A total of 100 (20.1%) contacts have attended at least one examination session and 41 contacts have completed all sessions. Ten TB cases were found among the contacts, of which four of them were adults (three bacteriologically confirmed and one clinically confirmed) and six were children (aged under 15 years). The positivity rate among children was higher (46.2%) compared with adults (14.3%). The positivity rate of confirmed TB among contacts with any TB symptoms was 43.8% and that without symptoms was 12.0%. The contribution of early detection in TB contact investigation to improve TB case finding was 8.1% through all TB patients. The early detection in TB contact investigation yielded additional notified cases, especially among children. A comprehensive education, covering cognitive and psychological aspect, is needed to encourage TB contacts to completely participate in early detection program until their diagnosis is confirmed.