What is the name for the first person who carries a disease in an outbreak?

Question

When there is an outbreak of a disease for example, and they trace it back to a single source, what is that person called. There is a specific name for that person.

Answer 1

Host

Answer 2

They are called "alpha-carriers." Typhoid Mary was a carrier of typhoid fever. She would be the "alpha-carrier" to other people who acquired the bacteria from her an then passed it along to other. "Alpha-carriers" are sometimes resistant and the reasoan they are called "alpha" is not because they were first but because they are still alive, scientists can trace a trail back to one person.

But it isn't true that science can find the very first person who had the disease, at most they can follow one branch of a tree which has a thousand branches.

Answer 3

In epidemiology, a vector is an organism that does not cause disease itself but which spreads infection by conveying pathogens from one host to another.

In biology, a host is an organism that harbors a virus or parasite, or a mutual or commensal symbiont, typically providing nourishment and shelter. In botany, a host plant is one that supplies food resources and substrate for certain insects or other fauna. Examples of such interactions include a cell being host to a virus, a legume plant hosting helpful nitrogen-fixing bacteria, and animals as hosts to parasitic worms, e.g. nematodes.

I would use the phrase original carrier, but it's an arbitrary idea, look at the original human carrier's of HIV:
A plasma sample taken in 1959 from an adult male living in what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

HIV found in tissue samples from a 15-year-old African-American teenager who died in St. Louis in 1969.

HIV found in tissue samples from a Norwegian sailor who died around 1976.

It's just a stygma idea that was used to repress a population, just like Jews were blamed for the black plague.

Most people think AIDS started with a gay flight attendent because of the movies. And gays still get blamed for it today.
When really no one can be blamed for getting sick!

Answer 4

Michael Jackson

Answer 5

The carrier or host

Answer 6

in the movies they call it patient zero to make it dramatic. of course i think in old days doctors just say ' hey this guy was the fist one to check in sick for this disease that everyone is having '

Answer 7

I've seen them called 'Patient Zero' but I think there's another name too. Looking.

Ok. Index Case.

Answer 8

The original host or carrier. This person or animal holds the antidote to fighting the disease in its original strain.

Answer 9

In addition to host and vector, I've heard them referred to as "Patient Zero" also.

Answer 10

that person is call "point zero" or "preson zero" or if they started the infection. The microorganism that causes the infection when first discovered in the population can be refered to as "index infection"