Quarantine, Travel Medicine and Migration Health Programs

Mandate: The Quarantine and Migration Health Program (QMHP) implements the Canadian Quarantine Act and Regulations, and the World Health Organization's (WHO) International Health Regulations. QMHP helps protect Canadians from the importation of dangerous and infectious diseases which might pose a threat to public health, through the international movements of persons, goods, and conveyances (air planes, trains, buses, automobiles, ships, boats, etc.)

To safeguard the health of Canadians, QMHP coordinates Canada's response to outbreaks of international disease. QMHP can implement contingency plans and other emergency measures developed with public and private sector partners.

QMHP provides information and advice to:

• public health authorities in Canada (provincial/territorial, municipal, city)
• other Federal Government Departments and Agencies (Canada Customs and Revenue Agency, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Foreign Affairs and International Trade, Transport Canada, etc.)
• international health authorities (WHO, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Pan American Health Organization, etc.)
• Canadian health professionals
• members of the public

QMHP also provides Border Health Security Training for other Federal Government Departments.

Yellow Fever Vaccination Centres Program

Article 66 of the International Health Regulations, passed by the World Health Assembly and which the Government of Canada is a signator, stipulates that "the vaccinating centre must have been designated by the health administration for the territory in which it is situated". Vaccinating centres are officially designated by countries in accordance with the International Health Regulations. Accordingly, Health Canada has established criteria which must be met for a clinic to be designated as a Yellow Fever vaccination centre. These criteria are designed to ensure that those persons seeking a Yellow Fever immunization prior to travel abroad have reasonable access to a Yellow Fever Vaccination clinic and are provided with appropriate travel advice and safe vaccination practices.

Travel Medicine Program

Each year approximately 4 million Canadians travel abroad, with over 1 million Canadians travelling to tropical destinations. Health concerns can arise as travellers encounter new and unfamiliar conditions that can pose significant health risks. Protecting the health of Canadians while they travel internationally is a growing area of public health practice.

The Travel Medicine Program (TMP) assesses the public health risk for Canadians travelling to, or residing in, foreign destinations, and provides information to both the public and health care providers. This information aims to promote the health of travellers while they reside at their destinations and to prevent the introduction of infectious diseases into Canada on their return.

As well, the Travel Medicine Program is the Secretariat for Health Canada's Committee to Advise on Tropical Medicine and Travel (CATMAT). This advisory committee provides travel and tropical medicine expertise to the Assistant Deputy Minister of the Public Health Agency of Canada.

The TMP strives to be the most accessible, authoritative and timely public resource in Canada for the provision of travel health information. To achieve that goal, the Program monitors, verifies and distributes travel health information and recommendations about:

• current information on international disease outbreaks;
• immunization recommendations for international travel; and,
• disease specific prevention and treatment recommendations and guidelines

For the travelling public: The TMP offers general information and recommendations to help individuals better understand their potential disease risk and the need for a personal risk assessment by a travel medicine professional prior to travel.

For health care professionals: The TMP disseminates recommendations produced by CATMAT on the use of immunization products and drugs to prevent or treat tropical diseases in travellers. Based on the most current scientific evidence, the TMP also provides CATMAT recommendations on the standards and quality of travel medicine advice given to travellers in Canada.

The Travel Medicine Program's travel health information can be accessed 24 hours-a-day via the Internet at www.TravelHealth.gc.ca.

Links to Partners:

• Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT)
• Committee to Advise on Tropical Medicine and Travel (CATMAT)