Atlanta: Federal health officials are seeking to update quarantine regulations, hoping changes such as easier access to airline passenger lists could better protect Americans from foreign infectious diseases, including bird flu. The proposed changes, announced by the federal Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), include easier CDC access to airline and ship passenger lists, a clearer appeal process for those subjected to quarantines, and authority to offer vaccinations and medical treatment to quarantined people.
In the past one-and-a-half years, the CDC has increased the number of quarantine stations at airports, shipping ports and border crossings from eight to 18.
Concerns about a potentially deadly bird flu immigrating from Asia are among the motivations for change, said Dr Martin Cetron, director of the CDC's division of global migration and quarantine.
Health officials fear the form of bird flu could spark a pandemic should it mutate into a form easily passed from human to human.
CDC officials say federal quarantine and contact-tracing regulations are antiquated. This is the first substantial overhaul in at least 25 years.
The need for new regulations was made clear during international outbreaks of the SARS virus in 2003, when public health officials had difficulty getting passenger information from airlines to trace the contacts of people who had been infected, Cetron said.
"SARS put it really front and centre where the gaps were," he said.
One proposal would require airlines and cruise lines to maintain passenger and crew lists and submit them electronically to CDC upon request.
The measure could cost as much as $108 million (Dh397 million) a year for airlines and $800,000 (Dh3 million) for cruise lines, according to a government estimate.
However, that assumes a dramatic revamping of electronic record-keeping, which may not be necessary, Cetron said.
Another proposal would set out legal rights of people in quarantine. Some legal scholars said their absence from federal law could cause delays during an outbreak.
Plan is part of wider defence against diseases
The changes are part of a multi-pronged attempt to guard against infectious agents from abroad.
The rules were being published in the Federal Register, and will be open for public comment for 60 days. CDC officials say they hope to make the regulations final by next spring.
