View report page

83
Exclusion from work
From time to time it is necessary that a suspected "carrier" of,
or a person in contact with, an infectious disease should be precluded
from working in order that the risk of transmission of the
disease is minimised. This is especially necessary when the person
concerned is a "food handler".
Circular 30/68
This Circular issued by the Ministry of Health states that the
Minister has been consulted by local authorities from time to time
about the respective scope of application of Section 41 of the Public
Health Act, 1961 and Part III of the Fourth Schedule to the Public
Health (Infectious Diseases) Regulations, 1953. It appears to the
Minister that, with the operation of the Act and Regulations of
1968, the provisions of Section 41 of the Act of 1961 as respects
notifiable diseases should be invoked only in relation to the following
diseases :—
(a) Diseases defined as notifiable under the amended definition
contained in Section 47 of the Act of 1968 :—
Cholera, plague, relapsing fever, smallpox and typhus.
(b) Diseases to which the provisions of Section 41 are applied
by Schedule 2 to the Regulations of 1968 :—
Acute encephalitis, acute meningitis, acute poliomyelitis,
anthrax, diphtheria, dysentery (amoebic or bacillary),
infective jaundice, leprosy, leptospirosis, measles, paratyphoid
fever, scarlet fever, tuberculosis, typhoid fever
and whooping cough.
Where action is required to secure the exclusion from work of
food handlers suffering from diseases or conditions not specified
above, the Minister is of the opinion that the powers contained in
Schedule 5 to the 1968 Regulations should be invoked.
The Minister has also been consulted from time to time about
the application of Section 41 to a person whose place of work is
in a different local authority area from his place of residence. The
Minister's view is that this Section empowers a medical officer of
health to exclude from work a person who either resides in his area
but works elsewhere or who works in his area but resides elsewhere.
It is of course a matter for the authorities to decide in the
individual case which should undertake responsibility for applying
Section 41. However, the Minister would, for example, consider it
reasonable that the notice to discontinue work, from which compensation
flows, should be issued by the medical officer of health
for the area in which the person is employed if, as would normally
be the case, the hazard to public health arose at the place of
work.