Cost and benefit of military quarantine policies

Hall, Andrew J.; Qureshi, Iram; Glaser, Jacob; Auchincloss, Paul J; Wilson, Ramey L

doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2020.106371

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…As reported by Israeli military medical researchers, quarantine orders resulting from contact tracing especially had a considerable impact on the operational readiness of their forces. Balanced against the relatively mild medical impact of SARS-CoV-2 on their predominantly young and healthy soldiers, they advocated for more liberal strategies in similar situations [7]. US (United States-) American military medical researchers calculated differences in quarantine costs, with quarantining based on geographic movement being more costly than quarantining based on close contact with infected individuals.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Irrespective of any normative interpretations on the appropriateness of chosen antipandemic measures, the experience reported by the Israeli and US American colleagues above [7,8] shows that strict infection control measures necessarily come with a price defined by undesired effects apart from infectious disease transmission prevention. Partly controversially discussed undesired effects among military personnel comprised overweight and diabetic diathesis due to reduced physical activity [9][10][11], age-dependent and predisposition-dependent increases in suicide rates [12][13][14], compensatory increases in risky sexual activity [15,16], affective disorders [17], higher rates of gambling problems [18] and considerable burn-out rates in military medical health staff [19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of COVID-19-Associated Infection Control on the Pattern of Infections Imported by German Soldiers and Police Officers Returning from Predominantly Tropical Deployment Sites

Wiemer,

Halfter,

Müseler

et al. 2023

Infectious Disease Reports

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In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, German public health authorities launched various infection control procedures. In line with this, anti-pandemic infection control was also implemented for German military and police deployments. The presented study assessed the impact of this increased infection control effort on deployment-associated infections in a holistic approach. To do so, the results of post-deployment assessments offered to German soldiers and police officers at the Department of Tropical Medicine and Infectious Diseases of the Bundeswehr Hospital Hamburg obtained during the pandemic period were compared to the results recorded during the pre-pandemic period in an exploratory, hypothesis-forming comparative study. In total, data from 1010 military deployments and 134 police deployments, predominantly to the African or the Eastern Mediterranean WHO regions, were included in the analyses. In the main results, a significant decrease in gastroenteritis in deployed soldiers (20.1% versus 61.3%, p < 0.0001) and at least a trend in the same direction in deployed police officers (25.7% versus 35.4%, p = 0.4026) were shown for the pandemic period, while no consistent tendency into the one or the other direction was detectable for febrile illness on deployment. In contrast to the finding of less frequently reported deployment-associated gastroenteritis, the detection rates of enteric microorganisms after deployment, including poor hygiene-related colonization with apathogenic protozoa, remained unchanged. Regarding non-enteric infections, the numbers of serologically confirmed malaria cases on deployment and as expected, due to increased airway protection, Mycobacterium tuberculosis-specific immune-conversion dropped significantly with p = 0.0037 and p = 0.009, respectively. As a side finding, soldiers and police officers with post-deployment medical assessments were more likely to be older and male during the pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period. In summary, only minor changes in deployment-associated infection and colonization rates were seen in response to the increased infection control procedures during the pandemic period, apart from respiratory infections. In particular, the clinical finding of less gastroenteritis on deployment was not matched by a concordant decline in poor hygiene-related enteric colonization with apathogenic protozoa in the soldiers’ guts, indicating that the fecal–oral transmission risk remained basically the same.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%