Abstract
Detection of patient zero can give new insights to epidemiologists about the nature of first transmissions into a population. In this Letter, we study the statistical inference problem of detecting the source of epidemics from a snapshot of spreading on an arbitrary network structure. By using exact analytic calculations and Monte Carlo estimators, we demonstrate the detectability limits for the susceptible-infected-recovered model, which primarily depend on the spreading process characteristics. Finally, we demonstrate the applicability of the approach in a case of a simulated sexually transmitted infection spreading over an empirical temporal network of sexual interactions.
- Received 31 October 2014
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.248701
© 2015 American Physical Society
Synopsis
Finding Patient Zero
Published 16 June 2015
A new model could help narrow down the source of a disease outbreak.
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