Skip Navigation



American Journal of Epidemiology Advance Access published online on January 18, 2006
American Journal of Epidemiology, doi:10.1093/aje/kwj056
This Article
Right arrow FREE Full Text (PDF) Freely available
Right arrow Web Only Appendix
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
163/5/479    most recent
kwj056v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Disclaimer
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Day, T.
Right arrow Articles by Wu, J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Day, T.
Right arrow Articles by Wu, J.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

American Journal of Epidemiology Copyright © 2006 by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health All rights reserved; printed in U.S.A.
Received June 16, 2005
Accepted October 11, 2005

PRACTICE OF EPIDEMIOLOGY

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

Troy Day 1, Andrew Park 2 *, Neal Madras 3, Abba Gumel 4, and Jianhong Wu 3

1 Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada; Department of Biology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada
2 Department of Biology, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada; Department of Mathematics and Statistics, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada; Current affiliation: Department of Limnology, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG), Dübendorf, Switzerland
3 Department of Mathematics and Statistics, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
4 Department of Mathematics, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

* To whom correspondence should be addressed.
Andrew Park, E-mail: andrew.william.park{at}gmail.com


  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.

Keywords: communicable diseases, emerging; disease outbreaks; epidemiologic methods; patient isolation; quarantine; SARS virus.
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 J Public Health (Oxf)Home page
C. P. Ryan
Where do pets fit into human quarantines?
J. Public Health Med., March 1, 2007; 29(1): 70 - 71.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]


Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.