Quarantine

Quarantine, in international law, name given to the regulations imposed by a country on the period of time during which a ship arriving in port is forbidden to land freight or passengers because it is suspected of being infected with a contagious disease. In municipal law, the term is applied to the sanitary regulations of a state or municipality that restrict the spread of contagious diseases within its own boundaries.

Maritime quarantine regulations were first instituted by Venice in 1348, followed soon after by other Mediterranean cities, and were directed against the invasion of pestilence from the East. Marseille established set rules in 1383, detaining anyone on an infected ship for forty, or quaranta, days; from this word arose the term “quarantine”.

In 1850 delegates from the principal countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea convened in Paris and adopted a code of international sanitary regulations. This code was later generally adopted by all countries and was enforced in their commercial relations with one another. Under its provisions, a ship leaving port is given a clean bill of health or a foul bill, depending upon whether the port from which the ship sails is free from or infected with a contagious disease. A suspected ship entering a port is at once placed under quarantine, the period varying in accordance with the severity of the suspected disease. In 1952 the World Health Organization, a United Nations agency, standardized this and other conventions in a code accepted by most countries; it also broadcasts relevant information to national health authorities and to ships at sea.

The United Kingdom has been free of rabies for many years, and has strict regulations about the importation of livestock. The established regulations for the importation of cats and dogs, for example, required them to be held in quarantine for six months beginning with the date of their arrival in the country, to ensure that they were not carrying the disease. The “pet passports” scheme, which identifies the animal by means of an electronic chip and checks the identification against a certificate from a veterinary surgeon, now allows owners to take their pets out of and into the country without quarantine.