Revised Laws of Saint Lucia (2023)

PART 4
SMALLPOX

I.—Infected Aircraft

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   1.   The passengers and crew shall be medically examined.

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   2.   The sick shall immediately be disembarked and isolated.

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   3.   Any other person reasonably suspected by the health officer to have been exposed to infection on board shall be offered vaccination and shall be placed under surveillance or, in exceptional circumstances, observation for a period expiring not later than 14 days after the date of arrival of the aircraft.

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   However, a person shall not be placed under surveillance or observation if after vaccination he or she shows signs of early reaction attesting an adequate immunity, or if he or she satisfies the health officer that he or she is already sufficiently immunised against smallpox; and for the purpose of this paragraph a person shall be regarded as already sufficiently immunised against smallpox if—

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      (a)     he or she produces a vaccination certificate to the satisfaction of the health officer bearing the date thereof and signed or counter-signed by a medical officer in the employment of the Government or of the health authorities of the territory in which the certificate was issued to the effect that he or she has been vaccinated not less than 14 days and not more than 3 years prior to the date of arrival;

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      (b)     he or she shows signs of a previous attack of smallpox;

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      (c)     he or she shows signs of successful vaccination carried out not less than 14 days and not more than 3 years prior to the date of arrival; or

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      (d)     he or she shows local signs of early reaction to anti-variolous vaccination attesting an adequate immunity.

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   4.   Bedding which has been used, soiled linen, wearing apparel and any other article which the health officer considers to have been recently infected shall be disinfected.

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   5.   The parts of the aircraft which have been occupied by persons suffering from smallpox or which the health officer considers to be infected shall be disinfected.

II.—Aircraft coming from an Infected Area

The passengers and crew, except those persons who satisfy the health officer that they fall within the proviso to paragraph 3 of Part D.—1 of the Schedule, may be placed under surveillance or, in exceptional circumstances, observation for a period expiring not later than 14 days after the date on which they left the infected area.

APPENDIX

Extracts from the International Sanitary Convention for Aerial Navigation, 1933

Article 8

In order that a sanitary aerodrome may be designated as a local area for the purpose of notification of infectious diseases and for other purposes as provided by the present Convention it must be so organised that—

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   (1)   The entry and exit of any persons are under the supervision and control of the competent authority;

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   (2)   In the case of a disease specified in Article 18 of this Convention occurring in the surrounding territory, access to the aerodrome by any route other than the air is forbidden to persons suspected of being infected, and measures are applied to the satisfaction of the competent authority with a view to preventing persons who are resident in or passing through the aerodrome from being exposed to the risk of infection, either by contact with persons from outside or by any other means.

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   In order that an authorised aerodrome which is not a sanitary aerodrome may similarly be designated a local area, it is necessary in addition that it shall be so situated, topographically, as to be beyond all probable risk of infection from without.

Article 18

The diseases which are the subject of the special measures prescribed by this Part of the Convention are plague, cholera, yellow fever, typhus and smallpox.

Article 38

Notwithstanding Article 4 of the 1933 Convention, every aerodrome which received aircraft to which the 1933 Convention as amended applies (Article 1, I, second paragraph) and which is situated in a region, that is to say, a part of a territory, in which yellow fever exists in a form clinically, biologically, or pathologically, recognisable shall be made a sanitary aerodrome as defined in the 1933 Convention, and in addition, shall be—

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   (1)   situate at an adequate distance from the nearest inhabited centre;

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   (2)   provided with arrangements for a water supply completely protected against mosquitoes, and kept as free as possible from mosquitoes by systematic measures for the suppression of breeding places and the destruction of the insects in all stages of development;

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   (3)   provided with mosquito-proofed dwellings for the crews of the aircraft and for the staff of the aerodrome;

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   (4)   provided with a mosquito-proofed dwelling in which passengers can be accommodated or hospitalised.

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   With a view to the elimination of insect vectors of yellow fever, disinsectisation of aircraft shall be carried out at each aerodrome within an endemic yellow fever area, particularly on departure from the last ærodrome in an endemic yellow fever area.

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   Health authorities in any territory within an endemic yellow fever area shall be at liberty to impose such quarantine restrictions against other territories within that area as may be authorised by the 1933 Convention as hereby amended. Detention of healthy passengers and crews not carrying valid Inoculation Certificates shall not be carried out at the aerodrome of departure. They shall be permitted to depart, the necessary quarantine measures being carried out at the first aerodrome of arrival in an area at risk.