Category: Health News
Created: 9/23/2008 2:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 9/23/2008
If Quarantine Works for Horses-Why Wont It Work for Avian Flu
The second problem inherent to quarantine is that it is a deliberate restriction of personal liberties. In fact, it is separation by prescription if not legislation. The reason quarantine has been such a great subject for Hollywood is that such restrictions violate basic tenets of our society and seeing the hero overcome those restrictions makes for good cinema. Attempts at quarantine for human disease throughout the ages have failed, even as quarantine has succeeded for narrow non-human diseases in domestic animals.
Answer comes from the very nature of quarantine for animals. The diseases for which animal quarantine works are diseases that are not easily transmitted to humans. Since all animals exposed to the disease, except humans, are maintained within the quarantine area and humans who are not capable of caring the disease out of the quarantine area, the ability for the disease to spread is absolutely stopped.
Further, in quarantine, you take everyone suspected of being exposed and separate them from everyone believed to have never been exposed. This raises two problems. One is the inherent uncertainty of knowing who has and has not been exposed and the second is the fact that in a pandemic ultimately everybody is exposed. Once you reach a certain level, quarantine makes no sense because there are more people in quarantine than not. In fact, statisticians have determined that once there are more than 31 cases worldwide, quarantine will no longer be an option. We are well over that number now.
When the avian flu pandemic strikes, all of humanity will be forced to find a way to decrease transmission while still maintaining the basic functions of society and of humanity.
So why doesn't this work in humans?
The State of Florida, Department of Agriculture, this week lifted the quarantine on horses in South Florida. This was welcome news to the competitive horse breeding industry which has spawned many of the recent champions of horse racing. Equine herpes virus, a disease fatal in horses, was the cause for the quarantine and officials lifted the quarantine because this it had stopped the progression of the disease through the horse-racing community.
The South Florida Horse Racing Industry was fortunate this year. They were able to quarantine animals, separate those animals that would die of the disease from those who never developed illness and ultimately wait for the disease to burn itself out. Their industry survived.
When the pandemic strikes it will be human nurses and human doctors who will be caring for human patients. That means the doctors and the nurses are just as likely to contract the disease as the people for whom they are caring. Even with the best personal protective devices (PPD), the ability to contain the disease will be non-existent.
allergic sinusitis headache
Sinus Headache Symptoms
allergic sinusitis
allergic sinusitis
allergic sinusitis methods
