Eli5; how we find “patient zero” when there is disease outbreak? (Like how they found who started the ebola outbreak in 2014)
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Contact tracing. Start with whoever has the disease right now, and use whatever info you can to determine who they’ve been in contact with during the past days/weeks/months – whatever the exposure/incubation period is. If any of those people also have or had the disease, repeat the process, and do it again and again and again until you get as close to the source as you can.
It’s easier to do this if the disease has a short exposure to symptoms period, a direct infection pathway, if the sypmtoms are serious and noticeable, and if there’s a decent health care system in place. It’s really hard to do this successfully if the symptoms are mild and it takes time for the illness to manifest.
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