Travel Medicine

Understanding Hepatitis A and How It Spreads Hepatitis A is a highly infectious virus that targets the liver, causing inflammation and illness. It spreads primarily through the fecal-oral route – meaning you can contract it by ingesting food or water contaminated with microscopic traces of feces from an infected person. In practical terms, this often

What Is Typhoid and Why It Matters to Travelers Typhoid fever is a bacterial infection caused by Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi, which attacks the gastrointestinal system. It spreads through contaminated food or water, often in areas with poor sanitation. Most cases of typhoid seen in Canada are actually in returning travelers who picked it up

What Rabies Is and Why It Matters Rabies is a viral disease that attacks the central nervous system and is almost always fatal once symptoms appear. People usually get rabies through the bite or scratch of an infected animal, because the virus lives in saliva. The disease is entirely preventable if treated before symptoms develop

What Are Insect-Borne Diseases, and Why Should Travelers Care? Infections carried by insects: Insect-borne (or “vector-borne”) diseases are illnesses transmitted to humans through bites of insects like mosquitoes, ticks, flies, or fleas. The insect (vector) picks up a virus, parasite, or bacteria from one host and injects it into a new person when feeding on