Quarantine - Definition and Overview

This page is about the term quarantine in its medical sense; for the science fiction novel by Greg Egan of the same name, see Quarantine (novel)

Quarantine (from Italian: quaranta giorni, forty days) is the act of keeping people or animals separated for a period of time before, for instance, allowing them to enter another country. By doing this, it is possible to limit the risk of spreading disease.

For example, due to the risk of introducing rabies from Continental Europe, the United Kingdom used to require all dogs (and, indeed, most animals) introduced to the country to spend six months in quarantine at an HM Customs and Excise pound; this policy was abolished at the beginning of the 21st Century in favor of a scheme generally known as Pet Passports, where animals can avoid quarantine if they have documentation showing they are up to date on their appropriate vaccinations.

In the case of people, quarantine usually raises questions of civil rights, especially in cases of long confinement or segregation from society, such as that of Mary Mallon, a typhoid fever carrier.

External link

• History of quarantine (from PBS NOVA) (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/typhoid/quarantine.html)