Abstract:

Tuberculosis is the infectious disease that causes the largest number of deaths in the world. As a public health policy, the isolation treatment of patients with infectious pulmonary tuberculosis could effectively prevent the spread of tuberculosis and is very important for achieving the global goals of the “END TB” strategy. However, isolation treatment has raised a series of important public health ethical issues, the core of which is to restrict individual freedom in order to protect people’s health. At present, China has started the legislative work of isolation treatment for patients with infectious pulmonary tuberculosis. Properly solving such problems would promote the formulation and implementation of effective isolation treatment regulations and policies. The purpose of this paper is to construct an ethical framework for evaluating isolation, so as to assist legislators, policy makers and public health practitioners to deal with the ethical problems of isolation and make isolation treatment ethical.

Key words: Tuberculosis, pulmonary, Patient isolation, Ethics, medical