Al-Tawfiq, Jaffar A.Sattar, AmarAl-Khadra, HusainAl-Qahtani, SaeedAl-Mulhim, MobarakAl-Omoush, OmarKheir, Hatim O.2020-11-052020-11-052020-10-07Al-Tawfiq, J. A., Sattar, A., Al-Khadra, H., Al-Qahtani, S., Al-Mulhim, M., Al-Omoush, O., & Kheir, H. O. (2020). Incidence of COVID-19 among returning travelers in quarantine facilities: A longitudinal study and lessons learned. Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease, 38, 101901. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmaid.2020.1019011873-0442https://hdl.handle.net/1805/24278This article is made available for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or be any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.Introduction: The emergence of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) had resulted in an unpresented global pandemic. In the initial events, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia implemented mandatory quarantine of returning travelers in order to contain COVID-19 cases. Materials and methods: This is a longitudinal study of the arriving travelers to Quarantine facilities and the prevalence of positive SARS-CoV-2 as detected by RT-PCR. Results: During the study period, there was a total of 1928 returning travelers with 1273 (66%) males. The age range was 28 days–69 years. Of all the travelers, 23 (1.2%) tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Of the first swab, 14/1928 (0.7%) tested positive. The positivity rate was 0.63% and 0.92% among males and females, respectively (P = 0.57). The second swab was positive in 9 (0.5%) of the other 1914 who were initially negative with a positivity rate of 0.39% and 0.62% among males and females, respectively (P = 0.49). There was no statistical difference in the positivity rates between first and second swab (P = 0.4). Of all travelers, 40 (n = 26, 1.3%) were admitted from the quarantine facility to the hospital due to COVID-19 related positive results or development of symptoms such as fever, cough, and respiratory symptoms; and 14 (0.7%) were admitted due to non-COVID-19 related illness. Conclusion: This study showed the efforts put for facility quarantine and that such activity yielded a lower incidence of positive cases. There was a need to have a backup healthcare facility to accommodate those developing a medical need for evaluation and admission for non-COVID-19 related illnesses.en-USPublic Health EmergencyCOVID-19QuarantineTravelSaudi ArabiaArticle