Border Health Regulations

the various administrative, medical, health, and counterepidemic measures designed to prevent some crop pests and the quarantine diseases that affect man and animals from entering a country. Regulations concerning human diseases are subject to international health regulations and are approved by the World Health Organization (WHO) and a series of international agreements.

Administrative border health regulations include temporary bans on entries and departures, restrictions on postal operations and trade, and, in exceptional cases, border closings. Medical, health, and counterepidemic measures consist of health inspections of transport facilities, physical examinations of passengers, verification of international vaccination certificates, hospitalization of the sick, isolation of those who have come into contact with sick individuals, medical observation, and disinfection. These regulations pertain both to persons entering and leaving a country and are observed in the USSR and other countries.

In the USSR border health regulations are based on the decrees of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR entitled On Border Health Regulations (1931) and Health Regulations Protecting the USSR Against the Importation and Spread of Quarantine and Other Contagious Diseases (1973); these decrees were approved by the Ministry of Public Health of the USSR. The Statute on State Health Inspections in the USSR (1973) is also a basis for the regulations.

Border health regulations are enforced by public health epidemiologic stations, which are under the direction of the Ministry of Public Health of the USSR. Public health authorities are stationed at international airports, seaports, and railroad stations. The public health epidemiologic service cooperates with the veterinary health inspection services to prevent anthrax, tularemia, brucellosis, and other diseases from entering the country with, for example, wool and hides.

Veterinary border health regulations are issued by the Ministry of Agriculture of the USSR. Veterinary health authorities are stationed on the national borders. All types of shipments across the border, including those that are carried by hand, are subject to veterinary health inspections. Animals, uncooked products and raw materials of animal origin, semifinished products, forage, packing materials of plant origin, including hay and straw, biological preparations, live fungous, bacterial, and viral cultures, and animal sperm are inspected. On the border, animals and products and raw materials of animal origin that do not have veterinary certificates are disinfected or destroyed.