This conference is intended for all who are interested in state of the art clinical practice, research, and education, in the field of travel and migration medicine. The target audience includes physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and students involved in primary care, occupational, migrant and public health, infectious disease, emergency and wilderness medicine. Also, it is designed to meet the needs of the travel media and industry as well as manufacturers of travel health-related products, drugs and vaccines.

The invited topics listed (see "Program at a Glance") give an idea of the scope of the meeting but will evolve up to the time of the meeting to include the broadest range of the most timely and topical travel health issues.

The cornerstone of any scientific meeting such as this are the submitted original research abstracts. Close to 300 abstracts have been submitted by January 15, 2009. Attendees want to hear and to keep up with the latest studies and experiences of their travel medicine peers. Attendance data from previous CISTMs indicate that many of the best attended sessions (outside of plenaries which have no competing sessions) were oral Free Communication sessions and not invited symposia or workshops.

We would also like to thank all those who took the time to submit symposium proposals at the beginning of 2008. After tallying the votes of the Scientific Program Committee we have done our best to consolidate and coordinate the highest scoring topics within the existing framework and to encompass areas not covered previously. 

Kevin C. Kain, Toronto, Canada, Chair
Christoph Hatz, Basel, Switzerland, Co-Chair
Lin Chen, Boston, United States, Associate Chair  
Fiona Genasi, Glasgow, United Kingdom, Associate Chair

Elizabeth Barnett, United States
Buddha Basnyat, Nepal
Jiri Beran, Czech Rep
Frank Bia, United States
Garth Brink, South Africa
Francesco Castelli, Italy
Blaise Genton, Switzerland
Sheila Hall, United Kingdom
Christoph Hatz, Switzerland
David Hill, United Kingdom
Mikio Kimura, Japan
Herwig Kollaritsch, Austria
Phyllis Kozarsky, United States
Susan Kuhn, Canada
Karin Leder, Australia
Peter Leggat, Australia
Rogelio Lopez Velez, Spain 
Margot Muetsch, Switzerland
Tomas Orduna, Argentina
Philippe Parola, France
Nancy Piper Jenks, United States
Pat Schlagenhauf, Switzerland
Heli Siikamaki, Finland
Alfons van Gompel, Belgium
Annelies Wilder Smith, Singapore
Mary Wilson, United States