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27
THE PUBLIC HEALTH (INFECTIOUS DISEASES)
REGULATIONS, 1953.
On 14th March the Ministry of Health circulated to Local
Authorities the Public Health (Infectious Diseases) Regulations,
1953, which supersede the Public Health (Infectious Diseases)
Regulations, 1927 and the Infectious Diseases (London) Regulations,
1927. The new regulations came into operation on 1st April, 1953.
In their general substance and form the new regulations are
similar to the old ; that is to say, they require notification of
malaria, dysentery, acute primary pneumonia and acute influenzal
pneumonia, and provide for preventive steps to be taken against
the spread of certain diseases specified in the Fourth Schedule to
the regulations. This schedule has been framed to accord with the
present shape and working of the health services ; and, in Part III,
it differs from the corresponding part of the earlier regulations in
some important respects concerning prevention of food poisoning.
The provisions about action to be taken by local authorities
and Medical Officers of Health against the risk of food poisoning
applied under the old regulations to " enteric fever and dysentery
They now apply to " typhoid fever, paratyphoid fever or other
salmonella infections, dysentery, and staphylococcal infection
likely to cause food poisoning". (The phrase "typhoid fever,
paratyphoid fever or other salmonella infections " comprises the
diseases previously described as " enteric fever ".) They provide
for action to be taken not only in respect of a person suffering
from the disease in question, but also of a person shown to be a
carrier of the disease ; and a "person in either class may now be
prevented not only from continuing to work in an occupation
connected with food or drink, but also from entering such an
occupation. In the new regulations, while the same general principle
is maintained (because action may involve the local authority
in paying compensation under Section 278(1) of the Public Health
Act, 1936), there is provision to enable a local authority to give its
Medical Officer of Health such authorisation as will permit him to
take the prescribed action in a particular case without waiting to
report it—though he is required to report it at the earliest opportunity—if
in his judgment this action needs to be taken as a matter
of immediate urgency to prevent the spread of infection.