The Ministry of Health is finalizing a legal report to support, if necessary, the possibility of imposing mandatory quarantines on the fourteen Spanish passengers of the cruise ship affected by a hantavirus outbreak who refuse to isolate themselves.
This has been reported to EFE by Health sources after the Minister of Health, Mónica García, has appealed "to common sense and responsibility" of the passengers, who will be transferred to the Gómez Ulla hospital in Madrid once they arrive at the port of Granadilla, south of Tenerife.
Dispute in the Government over whether the quarantine is voluntary or not
Mónica García has made this call after the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, pointed out this past Wednesday that these people, who for now are all asymptomatic, will quarantine in this military hospital "as long as they voluntarily wish," given that it is a measure that deprives them of their liberty, for which they would sign an informed consent.
However, although the head of Health trusts that the 14 passengers will ensure the "care of their health and public health" and will isolate themselves, she has warned that, in any case, the Government has "sufficient legal instruments to adopt the necessary measures to protect public health". For now, her department is preparing a legal report that would legally support the imposition of quarantine if necessary.
Health relies on Law 3/1986 on special measures in Public Health, which grants health authorities of public administrations the power to, within their scope of competence, adopt and apply the actions of this regulation when required by urgent or necessary health reasons.
In its second article, the aforementioned law establishes that "the competent health authorities may adopt measures of recognition, treatment, hospitalization, or control when there are rational indications that allow us to suppose the existence of danger to the health of the population due to the specific health situation of a person or group of people or due to the health conditions under which an activity is carried out".
And in the third that, "in order to control communicable diseases, the health authority, in addition to carrying out general preventive actions, may adopt the appropriate measures for the control of the sick, of persons who are or have been in contact with them and of the immediate environment, as well as those considered necessary in case of a communicable risk."