Balancing Individual Rights and Protection from Communicable Diseases

Communicable diseases pose a daily threat to human populations. Healthcare professionals make efforts towards the prevention of the spread of communicable diseases in case they find their way to human populations. Contagious diseases spread from one person to another and hence are the worst form of communicable diseases and thus require strict measures to be prevented. In some cases, the measures employed may be contrary to human rights as well as to human dignity. It is therefore necessary that only diseases that pose serious threats to human life should be dealt with strictly. Health officials from both the private and public sectors need to examine the level of danger posed by the communicable diseases before imposing measures that would compromise on the individual rights of those involved. Although quarantine and isolation are the most common measures employed in controlling communicable diseases, there have been concerns about the effects of such actions on human rights.

This therefore calls for the need to prevent the diseases from spreading uncontrollably. This calls for the decision to implement both quarantines and isolations without affecting the individual rights of the patients (Williamson, 1985). The implementation of these control mechanisms should be analyzed for their impacts on the social, economic and personal liberty implications. In addition to this, the costs of isolation and quarantine should also be analyzed before implementation. With respect to cost analysis, alternative interventions can also be reviewed to help determine the most appropriate alternative measures. The measures adopted should ensure equitable sharing of challenges and benefits. This means that is quarantines and isolations have to be carried out; it has to be in a very fair way.

Reference

Williamson, A.P. (1985). Curbing Communicable Diseases. New York: Oxford University Press. Print.

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