Tuberculosis (TB) Medical Surveillance Fact Sheet

What is TB Medical Surveillance?

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) requires that individuals found during their immigration medical examination (IME) to have inactive TB have a 'condition of entry' placed on their visa requiring them to complete post-landing TB medical surveillance.
Individuals requiring TB medical surveillance must report to, or be contacted by, a public health authority within 30 days of landing for non-urgent TB medical surveillance or seven days of landing for urgent cases of inactive TB or extrapulmonary TB.
Criteria for a post-landing TB medical surveillance includes previously treated TB, inactive pulmonary TB on chest x-ray, extrapulmonary tuberculosis, household/close contacts of persons with active pulmonary TB within the previous five years, and individuals with a reactive pre-landing IGRA (a blood test) or TST (tuberculin skin test) who are at high risk for TB reactivation.
Medical surveillance is a medical check-up for a person who has newly arrived in Canada, to make sure that they do not have TB disease. It ensures that proper treatment can be provided so that TB does not spread in the community.

If you are required to undergo medical surveillance, once you arrive your contact information is provided to the public health unit nearest to where you live in Canada. Each public health authority has their own process for how they manage medical surveillance. Generally, you can expect that the public health unit will contact you to initiate the medical surveillance process.

During the first talk with your public health nurse, you will be asked about your medical history, your risk factors for exposure to TB, and whether you have any TB symptoms. You will need to have a medical assessment by a local healthcare provider. If you are eligible to apply for publicly funded medical insurance, or OHIP (Ontario Health Insurance Plan), and if you have no signs or symptoms or TB disease, you can delay that medical assessment until you are eligible to obtain OHIP.

Once you have spoken with your Public Health Nurse and there is no sign that you might have active TB disease, you must notify your Public Health Nurse if:
- You move. Provide your new address and/or telephone number. You will also need to notify IRCC at 1-888-242-2100 or by accessing on-line services (www.cic.gc.ca) of your new address.
- You get a primary Health Care Provider (doctor/nurse practitioner).
- You develop symptoms of active TB.
Seek medical attention right away if symptoms of active TB disease develop, such as coughing longer than two weeks, fever, night sweats, chest pain, loss of appetite, unexplained weight loss, tiredness, coughing up blood or phlegm (thick fluid that comes up from your lungs/airways).
It is recommended that you obtain private health insurance if you will not be eligible, or until you become eligible for OHIP, in case you become ill. If you develop symptoms of TB disease and you do not have publicly funded or private medical insurance, the Tuberculosis Diagnostic and Treatment Services for Uninsured Persons Program (TB-UP) is available to help pay for testing for TB. If TB disease is diagnosed, free treatment can be started.

Call the Service Ontario Info line at 1-866-532-3161 between 8:30 am and 5:00 pm or visit in person a Service Ontario Centre or check online for information on how to apply for OHIP.

Your public health nurse will contact your healthcare provider to obtain the results of your medical assessment and any test results that are required (e.g., chest x-ray, Tuberculin Skin Test or sputum results). Medications to keep TB disease from starting could be prescribed and if so, your public health nurse will provide the medications to you. TB medications are available free of charge to anyone who requires them.
If you are not prescribed medications, there may be further assessments that will be made by your healthcare provider. Your public health nurse will obtain the results of these assessments and contact you as needed.
Your Public Health Nurse will advise IRCC of your fulfillment of your TB medical surveillance condition once you have completed an assessment for active pulmonary TB by a healthcare provider.

The length of time you will be under TB Medical Surveillance will be determined by your healthcare provider. The length of follow-up depends on your risk factors for developing TB disease. If you are not prescribed medications this timeframe could be as long as five years. If you are prescribed medications to prevent TB disease, the length of time you would be on medications could be up to nine months.
Your public health nurse will notify you and, if needed, your healthcare provider once all the follow-up for TB medical surveillance is complete.

Contact the Communicable Disease Control (CDC) Program at 705-474-1400, or toll-free at 1-800-563-2808, ext. 5229 or email us at cdc@healthunit.ca.

Created: March 2026, by CDC