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When Is Quarantine a Useful Control Strategy for Emerging Infectious Diseases?

When Is Quarantine a Useful Control Strategy for Emerging Infectious Diseases? The isolation and treatment of symptomatic individuals, coupled with the quarantining of individuals that have a high risk of having been infected, constitute two commonly used epidemic control measures. Although isolation is probably always a desirable public health measure, quarantine is more controversial. Mass quarantine can inflict significant social, psychological, and economic costs without resulting in the detection of many infected individuals. The authors use probabilistic models to determine the conditions under which quarantine is expected to be useful. Results demonstrate that the number of infections averted (per initially infected individual) through the use of quarantine is expected to be very low provided that isolation is effective, but it increases abruptly and at an accelerating rate as the effectiveness of isolation diminishes. When isolation is ineffective, the use of quarantine will be most beneficial when there is significant asymptomatic transmission and if the asymptomatic period is neither very long nor very short. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American Journal of Epidemiology Oxford University Press

When Is Quarantine a Useful Control Strategy for Emerging Infectious Diseases?

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References (32)

Publisher
Oxford University Press
Copyright
American Journal of Epidemiology Copyright © 2006 by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health All rights reserved; printed in U.S.A.
ISSN
0002-9262
eISSN
1476-6256
DOI
10.1093/aje/kwj056
pmid
16421244
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The isolation and treatment of symptomatic individuals, coupled with the quarantining of individuals that have a high risk of having been infected, constitute two commonly used epidemic control measures. Although isolation is probably always a desirable public health measure, quarantine is more controversial. Mass quarantine can inflict significant social, psychological, and economic costs without resulting in the detection of many infected individuals. The authors use probabilistic models to determine the conditions under which quarantine is expected to be useful. Results demonstrate that the number of infections averted (per initially infected individual) through the use of quarantine is expected to be very low provided that isolation is effective, but it increases abruptly and at an accelerating rate as the effectiveness of isolation diminishes. When isolation is ineffective, the use of quarantine will be most beneficial when there is significant asymptomatic transmission and if the asymptomatic period is neither very long nor very short.

Journal

American Journal of EpidemiologyOxford University Press

Published: Mar 1, 2006

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