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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