Overview
“Patient Zero is the first patient to acquire an infectious disease and to start spreading the virus. In epidemiologic investigations, it may also be called the “initial case” or the “marker case”, and it is this person who is responsible for the large-scale outbreak of an infectious disease.
Examples
1. The first officially documented case of AIDS in the world
It is understood that the world’s first officially documented case of AIDS patients is a male homosexual found in 1981. June 5, 1981, the United States Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly briefly introduced the medical history of five cases of AIDS patients, which is the world’s first official record of AIDS. But it was a gay man who was defined as “Patient Zero.” In 1982, the disease was officially named “AIDS” and known as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, or AIDS.
The most direct evidence of international travel contributing to the AIDS epidemic was the discovery of the so-called “Patient Zero”. Patient Zero was an Air Canada flight attendant named Gaten Dugas. He traveled extensively around the world for his job. Research found that some of the early HIV-infected people had direct or indirect sexual contact with Patient Zero, and these infected people were distributed in different cities in the United States.
2. Mexico confirmed the first case of new H1N1 influenza
The first case of new H1N1 influenza confirmed in Mexico is a four-year-old boy. He lives in the town of La Gloria in the state of Caloos Venables, Mexico, not far from the town where there is a large pig farm, raising about 1 million pigs a year, the town is located on a mountainside, as early as February 2009 when some people began to appear strong flu symptoms. By the time state health workers came to town on March 23 to investigate, 1,300 people were in need of medical attention. At this point in time, the child named Ediga Hernandez had not yet developed the illness, and a few days later, when he came home from school, he developed a fever, headache, and eye pain. Unlike the others, he had the new H1N1 flu, which Mexico confirmed nearly a month later. At first, Mexican epidemiological researchers noticed phenomena that did not seem to have anything to do with the flu. on April 7, researchers at the Mexican Institute of Diagnostic and Reference Epidemiology (IMDRE) heard that the National Institute of Respiratory Diseases (INSR) in Mexico had admitted a group of young patients with severe pneumonia, and that rumors were circulating that there were also cases that did not look like pneumonia but like influenza, and they analyzed the influenza data immediately. They analyzed the flu data and were baffled by the results: 37% of the patients had influenza B this flu season, compared to 15% in 2008. The outbreak that occurred in the town of La Gloria in March was not immediately sent to the Institute of Diagnosis and Reference Epidemiology, the best flu institute in Mexico, for analysis. This is because the epidemiologists in the state of Caloos Vernax found nothing unusual when they studied the outbreak in the town of La Gloria. In fact, the equipment and tests they had were only able to differentiate between new types of influenza and influenza B, but not subtypes of influenza. on April 1, children in La Gloria began to show symptoms of influenza, and two days later the state epidemiologists took samples. on April 4, the State Laboratory of Public Health tested the samples, and on April 8, they arrived at the Institute of Diagnostic and Reference Epidemiology (IEDR). In this institute’s lab, researchers isolated three strains of influenza, one H3N2, one B, and one they couldn’t identify, which they thought might be H1. In a transcript of an interview with the lab’s director, Celia Albers, Science magazine said “she spoke candidly about the limitations of her lab.” The unidentifiable type of influenza virus did not worry them because they believed the outbreak in the town of La Gloria was under control at the time, and they were unaware at this time of the two novel H1N1 cases in San Diego and Imperial Counties, which are located near the border between the U.S. and Mexico.On April 21, the Institute sent samples of the virus to the National Microbiology Laboratory of Canada and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for assistance. Control Center for help. Previously, Albers had learned of the California cases from an advance copy of the report sent to her by the CDC. The Canadian scientist received the samples at 3:00 p.m., and by midnight he called Albers to say that the novel influenza virus had been detected. By the afternoon of the 23rd, the Canadian scientists identified the virus subtype as H1N1, and although the shipment of the samples from Mexico to the CDC was delayed a day longer than the shipment to Canada, the CDC announced the same results in a conference call that same evening.On April 28, the Mexican government confirmed that Hernández was the earliest “novel influenza” detected in Mexico. Hernandez was recognized by the Mexican government on April 28 as the earliest person in Mexico to be found with the “new flu”. Some doctors called him “Patient Zero” because they thought he might be the source of the flu.