Traveler's consultations in time of pandemic COVID-19: changing practices and sentinel role ?

What is the status of travel medicine in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic? This article describes the evolution of travel medicine consultations at the University Hospital of Geneva with the introduction of pre-travel screening for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. 9141 travelers were screened between August 2020 and January 2021 for various destinations, one third of which were intra-European. The various international restrictions led to the creation of thirteen separate medical certificates and a list of requirements for 150 countries updated weekly. A significant increase in positivity (up to 5%) in the asymptomatic traveler was associated with the months of October and November 2020 and with certain destinations. This rate of positivity in the asymptomatic traveler population could be a sentinel indicator of viral transmission in the community.