S.D. Admin. R. 44:20:01:01 - Definition of terms

Terms used in this article mean:

(1) "Animal," any mammal, bird, amphibian, fish, reptile, or arthropod that may be infected or contaminated with an infectious agent;

(2) "Bioterrorism," any intentional act, threat, or hoax to expose, contaminate, or infect humans or animals with environmental, infectious, poisonous, or toxic agents;

(3) "Carrier," a person who harbors a specific infectious agent in the absence of discernible clinical disease and serves as a potential source or reservoir of infection for other persons;

(4) "Case," a person in the population or study group identified as having the particular disease, health disorder, or condition under investigation;

(5) "CD4 counts," CD4 cells or T-helper cells are blood lymphocytes that fight infection and their count indicates the stage of HIV or AIDS in a patient;

(6) "Child care setting," any setting outside the home where a child regularly spends more than four hours per week with more than two unrelated children under adult supervision;

(7) "Communicable condition," the state of being infected with an infectious agent and being able to transmit the agent to another person directly or indirectly;

(8) "Communicable disease," an illness due to a specific infectious agent or its toxic products that arises through transmission of that agent or its products from an infected person, animal, fomite, or reservoir to a susceptible host, either directly or indirectly through an intermediate plant or animal host, vector, or the inanimate environment;

(9) "Confirmed case," a case that is classified as confirmed per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "Case Definitions for Infectious Conditions under Public Health Surveillance" for that disease as provided by § 44:20:01:05;

(10) "Contact," a person or animal that has been in such association with an infected person or animal or a contaminated environment as to have had an opportunity to acquire the infection;

(11) "Contamination," the presence of an infectious agent on a body surface, in or on clothes, bedding, toys, surgical instruments or dressings, or in other inanimate articles or substances including water, milk, and food;

(12) "Counseling," an exchange of medical and personal information between a physician, health care worker, or public health worker and a person that results in assessment of the person's risk of contracting or transmitting a reportable disease. Counseling includes:

(a) Providing information to a person regarding personal behaviors or public health measures necessary to reduce or eliminate risk of contracting or transmitting a reportable disease or condition; and

(b) Determination of the need for testing, treatment, or other medical examination of the person;

(13) "Department," the South Dakota Department of Health;

(14) "Emergency response worker," a fire fighter, law enforcement officer, paramedic, emergency medical technician, or other person, including an employee of a legally organized and recognized volunteer organization, who in the normal course of professional duties, responds to emergencies;

(15) "Epidemic or outbreak," the occurrence in a health care facility, institution, community, or region of an illness or illnesses similar in nature, clearly in excess of normal expectancy, and derived from a common or propagated source;

(16) "Epidemiologically linked case," a case that:

(a) The patient has had contact with a person who either has or had the disease or has been exposed to a point source of infection or contamination; and

(b) Transmission of the agent by the usual modes of transmission is plausible.

A case may be considered epidemiologically linked to a laboratory confirmed case if at least one case in the chain of transmission is laboratory confirmed;

(17) "Exclude from duty," exclusion from work and from similar activities such as health care, food handling, and day care;

(18) "Exposure," contact with an infectious agent that may or may not cause infection;

(19) "Fomite," an inanimate object or substance that serves to transfer infectious agents to humans or animals;

(20) "Food handler," a person who handles food or utensils or who prepares, processes, or serves food for people other than members of the person's immediate household;

(21) "Good samaritan," any person who provides assistance in good faith in the event of an accident or other emergency situation;

(22) "Health care worker," a person, including a student or a trainee, whose activities involve contact with patients or with blood or other body substances from patients in a health care setting;

(23) "Immunization," administration of a substance that is capable of eliciting a specific immune response for the purpose of protecting a susceptible person from communicable disease;

(24) "Incubation period," the time interval between exposure to an infectious agent and appearance of the first sign or symptom of the disease in question;

(25) "Infected person," a person who harbors an infectious agent, who has manifest disease or inapparent infection, and from whom the infectious agent can be naturally acquired;

(26) "Infection," the entry and development or multiplication of an infectious agent in the body of humans or animals;

(27) "Infectious agent," an organism, chiefly a microorganism, or prion capable of producing infection or infectious disease;

(28) "Infectious disease," see "Communicable disease";

(29) "Influenza-associated hospitalization," any symptomatic person admitted to a hospital who has clinically compatible illness and positive laboratory results for influenza virus; including rapid antigen tests;

(30) "Invasive disease," isolation of an organism from a normally sterile site such as blood or cerebrospinal fluid and joint, pleural, or pericardial fluid;

(31) "Isolation," the separation, for the period of communicability, of infected persons or animals from others, in such places and under such conditions as to prevent the direct or indirect conveyance of the infectious agent from infected persons to persons who are susceptible to the infectious agent;

(32) "Laboratory confirmed case," a case that is confirmed by at least one of the laboratory methods listed in the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control "Case Definitions for Infectious Conditions under Public Health Surveillance" as provided by § 44:20:01:05;

(33) "Outbreak," see "Epidemic";

(34) "Period of communicability," the times during which an infectious agent may be transferred directly or indirectly from an infected person to another, from an infected animal to a person, from an infected person to an animal, or animal to animal;

(35) "Physician," a person who is licensed or approved to practice medicine pursuant to SDCL chapter 36-4;

(36) "Prion," an abnormal, transmissible agent that is able to induce abnormal folding of normal cellular prion proteins in the brain, leading to brain damage and the characteristics signs and symptoms of the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies and other progressive neurodegenerative disorders, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, Gertsmann-Straussler-Scheinker Syndrome, Fatal Familial Insomnia, and Kuru;

(37) "Probable case," a case that is classified as probable for reporting purposes according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "Case Definitions for Infectious Conditions under Public Health Surveillance" for that disease as provided by § 44:20:01:05;

(38) "Public health measure," counseling, immunization, preventive therapy, chemoprophylaxis, environmental sanitation, closure of establishment, exclusion from duty, isolation, quarantine, or other epidemiologically accepted measure imposed on persons or property to reduce morbidity and mortality;

(39) "Public health notice," a written or oral statement from the department issued to a case or carrier who is a health threat to others;

(40) "Public health worker," an employee of a federal, state, tribal, or local public health agency involved in the investigation of a reportable condition, death, or syndrome;

(41) "Quarantine," restriction of the activities of well persons or animals or potentially contaminated items that have been exposed to a communicable disease, during its period of communicability, to prevent disease transmission during the incubation period if infection should occur;

(42) "Reportable disease or condition," a communicable disease, syndrome, or condition declared by the department to be dangerous to public health and reportable in accordance with this article;

(43) "Reservoir of infection," any person, animal, arthropod, plant, soil, substance, or a combination of these in which an infectious agent normally lives and multiplies, on which it depends primarily for survival, and where it reproduces itself in such a manner that it can be transmitted to a susceptible host;

(44) "Standard or universal precautions," an approach to infection control that treats human blood, human body substances, non-intact skin, and mucous membranes as if they are known to be infectious for human immunodeficiency virus, hepatitis B, and other bloodborne pathogens;

(45) "Supportive or presumptive laboratory results," specified laboratory results that are consistent with the diagnosis, yet do not meet the criteria for laboratory confirmation. The term may include laboratory results that are negative for a given organism;

(46) "Suspected case," a case that has not been confirmed but is suggestive of such with current information;

(47) "Tuberculosis latent infection in a high risk person," includes:

(a) Any foreign-born person who entered the US within the last 5 years;

(b) Any contact to infectious tuberculosis;

(c) Any diabetic;

(d) Any person on renal dialysis;

(e) Any person on tumor necrosis factor-alpha therapy;

(f) Any person on immunosuppressive therapies (i.e. high dose steroids);

(g) Any person with radiographic evidence of prior tuberculosis;

(h) Any child less than 5 years of age;

(i) Any person with HIV infection;

(j) Any organ transplant recipient;

(k) Any person with silicosis;

(l) Any person with head and neck cancers;

(m) Any person with leukemia; and

(n) Any person with Hodgkin's disease.

(48) "Vaccine adverse event," any clinically significant event that occurs after the administration of any vaccine licensed in the United States;

(49) "Viral loads," a measurement of the number of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the blood.

Notes

S.D. Admin. R. 44:20:01:01

20 SDR 69, effective 11/17/1993; 23 SDR 60, effective 10/31/1996; 28 SDR 92, effective 12/30/2001; 30 SDR 89, effective 12/7/2003; 31 SDR 89, effective 12/27/2004; 33 SDR 106, effective 12/26/2006; 38 SDR 8, effective 8/1/2011; 39 SDR 203, effective 6/10/2013.

General Authority: SDCL 34-1-17, 34-22-9, 34-22-12, 34-23-13.

Law Implemented: SDCL 34-22-9, 34-22-12, 34-23-13.