This note is not part of the regulations, but is intended to indicate their general effect.

These regulations, which come into force on 25 September 2003, insert in the Schedule 2 of the Health (Infectious and Notifiable Diseases) Regulations 1966 ( “the principal regulations”) an item relating to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS).

The effect of the amendment is to—

• prohibit, during the isolation period shown in the second column of the item, a person who is suffering or has suffered from SARS from going, wilfully and without the consent of the Medical Officer of Health, outside the limits of the premises in which the person resides (see regulation 8 of the principal regulations):

• require the following to submit to medical examinations, and to produce specimens, and to submit to and carry out treatment, as required by the Medical Officer of Health (see regulation 10 of the principal regulations):

  • a contact of SARS (that is, a person exposed to risk of infection from SARS within a period not exceeding the period of incubation of that disease prescribed by the fifth column of that item):

  • a carrier of SARS:

• empower (and in certain cases require) the Medical Officer of Health to require a contact or carrier of SARS to be isolated by remaining within the limits of the premises within which the contact or carrier resides or within a hospital available for the reception of infectious cases or within another place specified by the Medical Officer of Health (see regulation 11 of the principal regulations):

• require every child and every school teacher who is suffering from, or is suspected to be suffering from, SARS to be excluded from school for the period of isolation shown in the second column of that item or for a lesser period determined by the Medical Officer of Health (see regulation 14(1) of the principal regulations):

• require every child and every school teacher who has been exposed to the infection of SARS to be excluded from school for the period shown in the fourth column of that item or for a lesser period determined by the Medical Officer of Health (see regulation 14(2) of the principal regulations):

• impose duties (to secure compliance with the previous 2 requirements, and to give to the Medical Officer of Health, or to an Inspector, certain information he or she requested) in relation to SARS on certain parents or guardians, certain school teachers, and certain head teachers or other persons in charge of schools (see regulation 14(3) of the principal regulations):

• make contraventions of those prohibitions or of those requirements, or failures to comply with those duties, an offence punishable by a fine not exceeding $500 and, if the offence is a continuing one, to a further fine not exceeding $50 for every day on which the offence has continued (see regulation 26 of the principal regulations and section 136 of the Health Act 1956).