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whooping cough for 28 days from the beginning of the characteristic
cough; from mumps for 14 days from the onset of the disease, or seven
days from the subsidence of the swelling; and from chickenpox for 14
days from the date of the appearance of the rash.
Exclusion of Contacts
Because the contact of a sufferer from an infectious disease might be
a carrier either contact or incubationary, it was at one time customary
to insist on the exclusion of contacts from work. The stringency of this
practice has been greatly relaxed so that to-day most authorities exclude
only those contacts whose work brings them into association with those
of susceptible ages or which renders them possible instruments of widespread
outbreaks through their handling of milk or some other medium.
Even where exclusion is required, it is imposed only in the case of the
more severe of the infectious diseases. In regard to children attending
day schools the practice in this district is that recommended in the
addendum issued in 1942 to the Memorandum on the Closure of and
Exclusion from Schools which had at an earlier date been issued by the
Ministry of Health and the Board of Education. It is now only exceptionally
that adult contacts are excluded from their work. There are
two main classes of workers who may be required to abstain from their
ordinary work. The one is of those persons whose work brings them
into close contact with those such as young children who are especially
susceptible to attack, or hospital nurses who might cause infection in a
ward. The other group is of those whose work brings them into contact
with such foods as milk which, if infected, might result in widespread
infection. Even in the case of persons so employed, it is not always
necessary that they should stay away from work, but only from that
work at which there is the risk of spread. Many employers are able to
put the contact employees temporarily on to some alternative work where
there is no greater risk of the spread of infection than in the case of
ordinary members of the public. If a person has to remain away from
work with a view to reducing the risk of spread of infection, he is entitled
to draw sickness benefit at the rate he would receive were he ill. This
payment can be made, however, only if the Medical Officer of Health for
the district can issue a certificate that the exclusion of the contact is
necessary with a view to reducing the risk of spread of infection. The
Ministry of Health Circular 115/48 reads:—
" As Medical Officers of Health are aware, it is only exceptionally
that it is necessary to require a contact or carrier of infectious
disease to stay away from work, and then only as regards the more
serious infections. But a Medical Officer of Health, in his responsibility
for preventive action, may on occasion consider it necessary,
where there is special risk, that such a person should absent himself
from his employment for a time; and it is in such circumstances
that the right to draw sickness benefit will arise. Benefit will only
be paid on the strength of a certificate by a Medical Officer of Health
that the person concerned is under medical observation by reason ot
being a carrier of infectious disease, or of having been in contact with
a case of infectious disease (as the case may be), in circumstances