Appendix D: Airplanes & Cruise Ships: Illness & Death Reporting & Public Health Interventions

CDC has a regulatory mission to protect US public health by preventing the introduction, transmission, and spread of communicable diseases from foreign countries into and within the states or territories of the United States. As part of a range of authorized public health activities, presidential executive orders specify the diseases for which CDC may issue a federal public health order; that is, a federal quarantine, isolation, or conditional release order (cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, yellow fever, viral hemorrhagic fevers, new or emerging types of influenza, and severe acute respiratory syndromes). The list of federally quarantinable diseases can be revised by executive order if an emerging infectious disease that is not on the list becomes a public health threat.

For more information on specific laws and regulations governing the control of communicable diseases, see www.cdc.gov/quarantine/specificlawsregulations.html.