Volume 1, Issue 1
Published: October 29, 2025
All countries around the world continued to fight the outbreak of the Coronavirus (COVID19) and dealt with the disease. The question arises how this public health crisis affects individual and human rights. It is essential that we should not ignore human rights during this crisis, even our primary focus may be to fight the outbreak and cure for the disease. The epidemic and the legal responses to it have serious consequences on people’s lives. In response to the epidemics, public health laws in USA, UK, Canada, Australia and many other countries allow health departments and public health officials to impose a number of measures that affects people’s lives and their human rights. These measures include detaining people to be screened, collecting their health information, and putting them in isolation and quarantine against their will. People who do not comply with orders by public health officials, or obstruct their work can face criminal charges. While these types of measures are essential during such emergencies, it is worth noting that they do interfere with basic human rights, especially the right to liberty. In the recent past India has imposed draconian restrictions throughout the country, subjecting the whole population to a legally enforceable quarantine and thus violating fundamental freedoms.
Infectious Disease, Coronavirus (Covid-19), HIV/AIDS, Public Health Law, Isolation and Quarantine, World Health Organization, Criminalization of Transmission, International Human Rights Law
Subhash Chandra Singh, Former Professor & Dean, School of Legal Studies, Assam University, Silchar, India.
Singh, S, C. (2025). Prevention and Control of Infectious Diseases: Integrating Ethical and Human Rights Principles into Public Health Laws. Epidemiol Public Health OA , 1(1), 01-21.