2023 New Hampshire Revised Statutes › Title X - Public Health › Chapter 141-C - Communicable Disease › Section 141-C:2 - Definitions.

141-C:2 Definitions. –
In this chapter:
I. "Agent" means any individual authorized by the commissioner to assist in carrying out the provisions of this chapter.
II. "Baggage" means the personal belongings of travelers. Such personal belongings need not be in the personal possession of the traveler.
III. "Care" means the furnishing of necessary services to a person infected with a communicable disease. The term includes provisions for shelter, food, and such other services that the person is unable to provide for himself due to his infection or its physical effects.
IV-a. "Child" means any person between birth and 18 years of age.
IV-b. "Child care agency" means "child day care agency" as defined in RSA 170-E:2, IV and "child care agency" as defined in RSA 170-E:25, II.
V. "Commodity" means any animal or animal product, plant or plant product, or inanimate material intended to be sold or distributed to the public.
VI. "Communicable disease" means illness due to a microorganism, virus, infectious substance, biological product that may be engineered as a result of biotechnology, or any naturally occurring or bioengineered component of any such microorganism, virus, infectious substance, or biological product, which may be transmitted directly or indirectly to any person from an infected person, animal or arthropod (including insecta or arachnida) or through the vehicle of an intermediate host, vector, or inanimate environment.
VII. "Conveyance" means any vessel, aircraft, motor vehicle or other mode of transportation which is engaged in the transport of passengers, baggage, or cargo.
VIII. "Decontamination" means the act of rendering anything free from the causal agents of communicable disease.
IX. "Commissioner" means the commissioner of department of health and human services, or his designee.
X. "Department" means the department of health and human services.
X-a. "Health care provider" means any person who or entity which provides health care services including, but not limited to, hospitals, medical clinics and offices, clinical laboratories, physicians, naturopaths, chiropractors, pharmacists, dentists, registered and other nurses, and nurse practitioners, paramedics, and emergency medical technicians.
XI. "Health officer" means any individual appointed under RSA 128:1 or employed under RSA 47:12.
XI-a. "Immunization" means inoculation with a specific antigen to promote antibody formation in the body.
XI-b. "Immunizing agent" means a vaccine, antitoxin, or other substance used to increase a person's immunity to a disease.
XII. "Isolation" means the separation, for the period of communicability, of infected persons from others in such places and under such conditions as to prevent or limit the direct or indirect transmission of the infectious agent from those infected to those who are susceptible or who may spread the agent to others.
XII-a. "Protected health information" means any information, whether in oral, written, electronic visual, or any other form, that relates to an individual's physical or mental health status, condition, treatment, service, products purchased, or provision of care, and that reveals the identity of the individual whose health care is the subject of the information, or where there is a reasonable basis to believe such information could be utilized (either alone or with other information that is, or should reasonably be known to be, available to predictable recipients of such information) to reveal the identity of that individual.
XIII. "Quarantine" means the restriction of activities of well persons who have been exposed to a case of communicable disease, during its period of communicability, to prevent disease transmission during the incubation period if infection should occur. It also means the detention of a conveyance, commodity, baggage, or cargo in a separate place for such time as may be necessary and during which decontamination may be carried out.
XIII-a. "School" means any facility which provides primary or secondary education.
XIV. "Treatment" means the provision of medical services to prevent, control, or eliminate the infection of a person by a communicable disease.
Source.
1986, 198:21. 1987, 193:1-3. 1990, 257:1. 1994, 208:1. 1995, 310:93, 183. 2002, 258:6-8, eff. July 1, 2002.