Isolation & Quarantine
Measures in Response to a Smallpox Emergency
Quarantine
Measures Planning and Operational Issues
There are varying
levels of isolation and quarantine that range from personal to
community-wide. Quarantine means the restriction of disease carriers
(but not necessarily symptomatic) to an area where their contact
with non-exposed, non-carriers is limited. In the United States,
quarantine was widely used as a public health measure until the
1950’s but is not generally used currently. Isolation is
almost always used in an institutional setting. Isolation is used
for diseases that are transmitted through casual contact or respiratory
transmission. Strict isolation used for highly infectious agents
that my travel long distances through air or be caught from cutaneous
contact with sores or secretions.
Another term
that might be used when discussing restrictions of movements is
the “Cordon Sanitaire”. Term is usually associated
with keeping people within a defined geographic area in which there
is a disease outbreak. May move within the isolation area, but
not outside it, in order to keep the disease from spreading.
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