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Ports and disease

Introduction
Infectious disease
Ports and the spread of disease
Quarantine
The Port Health Authorities
SARS and beyond
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Introduction

Ports have always been the gateway through which goods, people and ideas could leave or enter a country, but they also allow the movement of less welcome visitors.

Quarantine guard ship 'Rhin', Standgate Creek.
View full size imageThe quarantine guard ship Rhin at Standgate Creek near Sheerness. © NMM
For thousands of years before rail, road or air travel became possible, diseases moved most swiftly by sea. Ships containing infected people or goods travelled long distances, carrying diseases to countries where they had never been known before.

 


 

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Find out more
StoriesContaining smallpox in Victorian London
The floating hospitals
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StoriesHospitals in the port
Caring for the sick
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