- Click to share on Facebook (Opens in a new window)
- Click to share on Twitter (Opens in a new window)
- Click here to share on LinkedIn (Opens in a new window)
- Click to email a friend (Opens in a new window)
Drone captures giant row to buy masks in Korea 0:48
(CNN Spanish) - The term zero patient has been popularized by disease and pandemic films, and in the days of the coronavirus outbreak, it has refloated. In fact, its origin is a mistake: the bad letter of a researcher who wrote “Patient O” (out of California or outside of California) to refer to one of the first cases of HIV in the US. In the 80s, it was read as a 0 instead of an O, and thus the term was born to refer to the first documented cases of a disease.
In the case of the coronavirus, a patient 0 has not been identified as such, but it is known that the primary cases occurred in Wuhan, in the Chinese province of Hubei, and researchers have traced the origin of the virus to a seafood market there. More than 90% of coronavirus cases have occurred in mainland China, but it is already found in more than 30 countries.
Drone captures giant row to buy masks in Korea 0:48“The index patient or zero patient is the first person to introduce an infectious disease into a community. Its identification is important for public health because it not only allows us to understand how the pathogen reached the community, but also, because it allows us to “track that agent” to establish preventive measures in the population, ”explains Dr. Elmer Huerta, Public Health specialist and collaborator of CNN in Spanish.
Scientists and public health officials are reluctant to identify so-called “zero patients,” Thomas Friedrich told CNN in 2017.
LOOK: The Dow sinks 1,000 points as the cases of coronaviruses increase in South Korea and Italy
“Identifying a person as the zero patient, on the one hand, can give an incorrect impression about how the disease emerges in the first place and, on the other hand, imply that someone should be blamed for this outbreak, when that is not really appropriate” said Friedrich, associate professor of pathobiological sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Veterinary Medicine.
"However, it is scientifically important and for people and public health to understand index cases so that we know how diseases are reaching a community and how to stop their spread."
"It is important that the index patient or zero patient is not stigmatized," agrees Dr. Huerta.
In Italy, where there are already more than 200 cases of coronaviruses, at a peak that worries the authorities, they are struggling to locate the first person with the virus in the country.
MIRA: Is it safe for travelers to visit Italy with the coronavirus alert?
"We still cannot identify the zero patient, so it is difficult to predict possible new cases," said Angelo Borrelli, head of the Italian Civil Protection agency.
The importance of the zero patient lies there: in knowing where he was, with whom he had contact and thus tracing other possible infections.
Some scientists argue that it is equally important to analyze the primary cases: the person or animal that first brings a bacterium or virus to a population. For many infectious disease pandemics, the primary case will never be known, said Dr. Ian Lipkin, professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University in New York.
"It is not uncommon for infectious agents to seep into the environment for years or even decades without being detected," Lipkin said, adding that an agent could enter the human population in more than one person.
MIRA: The death toll in Italy increases due to the coronavirus
And even after an infectious agent crosses the human population, some people are better able to spread it than others, he said.
"Therefore, it may make more sense to speak in terms of super diffusers than zero patients," Lipkin said. "Super broadcasters can travel or participate in certain types of behaviors ... that result in transmission to a large number of people."
With information from Jacqueline Howard of CNN.
coronavirus