President Bush issued an executive order Friday giving health officials authority to forcibly quarantine Americans sick with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). The order adds SARS to the list of diseases for which health authorities have authority to involuntarily quarantine Americans. It’s the first time in two decades that a new disease has been added to the list, which includes cholera, diphtheria, infectious tuberculosis, plague, smallpox, yellow fever and viral hemorrhagic fevers such as Ebola, Lassa and Marburg.

The order allows health officials to take people who have been exposed and may be infected, but are not yet ill, and restrict their movements in an effort to stop the spread of the illness. Health officials have said, however, that they have no immediate plans to use their new powers.

At least 2,400 people worldwide have been infected with SARS. In the United States, 115 people in 29 states have the illness—with most of them having recently traveled to SARS-affected areas in Asia. In California, 30 suspected cases of SARS were being investigated as of Friday, April 4.