SARS

Quarantine historically first defense against virus

Published in TB and Outbreaks Week, June 3rd, 2003

In Milan in 1374, plague victims were ordered to a field outside the city, either to die or recover. Four hundred years later, Egyptian authorities sent the sick to pesthouses and shot heads of families if they didn't report a disease victim in their midst.

As archaic as it seems, quarantine remains the first line of defense against deadly viruses spread from person to person - from the Black Death of the Middle Ages to SARS now.

"It is a time-tested way of stopping or impeding the transmission of disease," said Larry Gostin, a public health professor at Johns Hopkins University.

But if the modern quarantine shares the goals of...

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Source: TB and Outbreaks Week (2003-06-03)

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