When used in this article:
(a) "Carrier" means an individual who, without showing any evidence of clinical disease, harbors and is capable of transmitting an infectious agent and may be a potential source of infection to others.
(b) "Case" means, depending on the context, (1) an individual who, based on clinical, laboratory and/or epidemiologic evidence or other recognized public health criteria, has a disease or condition of public health interest that is reportable to the Department pursuant to this article or any other applicable law or regulation, or (2) an instance of such a reportable disease or condition occurring in an individual.
(c) "Child" means a person under the age of 18 years.
(d) "Clinical laboratory" or "laboratory" means a facility, including a blood bank, regulated pursuant to Public Health Law, Title V, Article 5, holding a permit issued by the New York State Department of Health, and operating in the City or testing a specimen from a City resident.
(e) "Communicable disease" means an illness caused by an infectious agent or its toxins that occurs through the direct or indirect transmission of the infectious agent or its products from an infected individual or via an animal, vector or the inanimate environment to a susceptible animal or human host.
(f) "Condition of public health interest" or "condition" means a disease, illness, syndrome or injury, or other threat to health that is identifiable on an individual or community level and can reasonably be expected to lead to adverse health effects in the community.
(g) "Contact" means an individual who has been identified as having been exposed, or potentially exposed, to a contagious or possibly contagious disease through such close, prolonged or repeated association with another individual or animal that, in the opinion of the Department, there is a risk of such individual contracting the contagious disease. A contact can be a household or non-household contact.
(h) "Contagious disease" means a communicable disease that is transmissible from one individual to another individual by direct or indirect contact.
(i) "Directly observed therapy" means a course of treatment, or preventive treatment, for a contagious disease in which the prescribed medication is administered to the person or taken by the person under direct observation as specified by the Department.
(j) "Epidemiological and surveillance reports and records" shall mean the reports of diseases and conditions of public health interest required to be reported to the Department that are received by the Department, and records of the case and contact investigations conducted and maintained by the Department related to such reports. Epidemiological and surveillance reports and records shall not include information contained in the immunization registry nor in the children's blood lead registry created pursuant to 24 RCNY Health Code §§ 11.07 and 11.09, respectively.
(k) "Exclude" means to keep from attendance at a day care or other childcare setting, school, worksite, shelter, or other place as specified in this Code or as may be directed by the Department.
(l) "Food handler" or "food worker" means a person who works in any place where food or drink is prepared, manufactured, handled, bottled, packed, stored, offered for sale, sold or provided free of charge, whose duties or the circumstances under which the food handler works, in the opinion of the Department, involve a risk that the food handler or food worker may cause the spread of disease.
(m) "Household contact" means an individual who has been or may have been exposed to another individual or animal with a contagious disease, based on residence in the same household or residential premises, sufficient to, in the opinion of the Department, put such individual at risk for acquiring the contagious disease.
(n) "Individual" means a natural human being.
(o) "Isolate" or "isolation" means the physical separation of persons who have a contagious disease or are suspected of having a contagious disease from other persons who do not have such contagious disease.
(p) "Outbreak" means an increased incidence of a disease or condition of public health interest above the expected or baseline level for that disease or condition.
(q) "Quarantine" means the physical confinement, separation, detention, or restriction of activities, including entry or exit to or from premises or other places, of individuals who have been or are suspected of having been exposed to a contagious disease or possibly contagious disease, from other persons who have not been exposed to that contagious disease.
(r) "Suspect case" means an individual with clinical, laboratory or epidemiologic evidence suggesting the existence of a disease or condition that is reportable to the Department pursuant to this article or any other applicable law or regulation, but which has not yet been confirmed.