Table.

National public health laws to control infectious diseases

	Purpose of intervention	Actions necessary for success of intervention
Legal interventions related to testing, screening, reporting, contact tracing, and partner notification can improve surveillance data, while protecting confidentiality and privacy	Improving essential data through early warning, identify individuals at risk, reduce transmission, monitor incidence, facilitate response	Improve public health infrastructure: labs, workforce, data systems
Legal interventions related to occupational health and safety, so-called wet markets, animal quarantines, and culls can decrease animal–human interchange	Protecting animal health, and preventing so- called species jumps to humans	Improve hygiene and infection control in animal farming, and meat and poultry markets
Legal interventions related to hand-washing, disinfection, respiratory hygiene, potable water, and sanitation can improve community hygiene	Reducing transmission in families and the community	Public education grounded in risk communication science, clean water and sanitation systems
Legal interventions related to disinfection, hand hygiene, personal protective equipment, and health-care worker vaccinations can help control hospital infections	Reducing transmission among patients, health workers, and families and communities	Training and monitoring in infection control, greater acceptance of vaccination by health professionals
Legal interventions related to the closing of public places, cancelling public events, and restricting mass transit can help decrease social mixing in the event of an outbreak	Slowing the spread of infection in public settings	Target closures to high-risk settings based on evidence
Legal interventions related to screening (entry and exit), reporting, health alerts, passenger data, travel advisories, hygiene (inspection, disinfection, and pest extermination) can help improve border controls	Preventing cross-border spread of infectious diseases	Adequate resources for surveillance, treatment, and response in affected areas and national borders
The law can prevent spread of infectious diseases through isolation and quarantine, and ensuring respect for human rights. Laws should ensure that in the event of an outbreak, any isolation or quarantine strategies, including so-called shelter in place policies, are safe and humane, evidence-based, and no more restrictive than necessary to protect public health	Separating the infected or exposed from the healthy	Safe and humane settings, assure necessities of life, logistics, modern laws with due process
Legal interventions related to vaccines and antivirals can help improve medical countermeasures	Implementing prophylaxis, and reducing infectiousness	Stable, viable supplies: incentives, public–private partnerships, tort reform, compensation
Legal interventions related to antibiotic use in humans and animals, and falsified or substandard medications can help in preventing drug-resistant infections	Reducing spread of drug-resistant infections in animals and humans and developing new antimicrobial medications	Appropriate medical prescribing, reduced use of antimicrobials in farmed animals, curbing the trade in falsified and substandard medications, incentivising research and development of new antimicrobials