June 25, 2025
Media Contact: Brookie Crawford, brookie.crawford@vdh.virginia.gov
Virginia Department of Health Participates in Tranquil Passport Exercise
Exercise Validates Capabilities to Move Infectious Patients
RICHMOND, Va. – This week the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) joined with state, local and federal partners to take part in the four-day Tranquil Passport exercise. The purpose of the exercise is to test and validate Virginia and the nation’s capabilities to safely and efficiently transport highly contagious patients to regional treatment facilities.
“Exercises like this one allow the rare opportunity to fully simulate the communication, coordination, and collaboration necessary to ensure the movement safely of American citizens who may have been exposed to a highly infectious disease and need to be brought back to the United States for treatment,” said Northern Region Emergency Preparedness Coordinator Jeffrey Walker. “It takes a full complement of federal, state, regional, local, and private sector agencies and their resources to conduct an operation like this safely and securely. Our partners here in Virginia with the Virginia State Police, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority (MWAA), Northern Virginia Emergency Response System (NVERS), and Virginia Department of Emergency Management all work together to ensure we meet the needs of our citizens.”
The exercise is the culmination of months of planning with more than 50 partner organizations. The scenario for the full-scale exercise involved the moving of several American patients with a simulated highly infectious disease from Toronto, Canada to hospital facilities from New York to Georgia over the course of four days.
Staff from VDH and the above-mentioned Virginia agencies participated on Tuesday and Wednesday, June 24 and 25. Simulated patients were transported by air to Virginia, where they were moved using a Portable Biocontainment Unit (PBCU) to Medstar Washington Hospital Center, Children’s National Medical Center, and Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
The PBCU is a new resource used to isolate and transport patients with highly infectious diseases. The unit can be customized to transport up to 10 patients via air or on a specialized trailer pulled by a semi-truck. The PBCU allows for continuous treatment of multiple patients isolated in the unit and for onboard care teams to switch out during longer transportation. Take a tour of the PBCU.
Tranquil Passport is just one of many preparedness exercises that the VDH participates in routinely to test and validate processes and procedures. Lessons learned from exercises like Tranquil Passport help VDH enhance readiness to respond to all hazards, including bioterrorism, infectious disease outbreaks and other public health emergencies.
For more information about the mission of VDH, please visit our website.
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