Civil liberties and public good: detention of tuberculous patients and the Public Health Act 1984.

<jats:p>On 30 August 1998, the <jats:italic>Mail on Sunday</jats:italic>, under the headline “TB refugee ‘must be held in hospital’”, described the case of a Somalian man who had been “ordered by a court to remain in hospital for six months to prevent him spreading a highly infectious deadly disease”. That disease was tuberculosis and a court order had been issued “after the man had twice staggered into Northwick Park Hospital in Harrow, North-West London, for treatment but left without trace. He failed to take prescribed treatment and his condition rapidly deteriorated, forcing him to return to hospital a third time.”</jats:p>