ArticleNature2005
Superspreading and the effect of individual variation on disease emergence.
Article in Nature, 2005. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1,256 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
1,256 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 2,679 citations in OpenAlex.
- Heterogeneity in and correlation between host transmissibility and susceptibility can greatly impact epidemic dynamics.Journal of theoretical biology · 2025Pooled it
- Superspreading of SARS-CoV-2: a systematic review and meta-analysis of event attack rates and individual transmission patterns.Epidemiology and infection · 2024Pooled it
- Generation time in a discrete epidemic model with asymptomatic carriers: beyond geometric waiting times.Infectious Disease Modelling · 2027Article
- Delayed introduction, transmission variation and susceptible dynamics explain spatial asynchrony during Republic of Korea's large pertussis outbreak.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2026Article
- Characteristics and Superspreading Potential of Andes Virus Person-to-Person Transmission.Emerging infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Demographic changes and behavioural responses shape vulnerability to infectious disease outbreaks.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- The consequences of host heterogeneity for parasite transmission depend on how host infectiousness is determined.The Journal of animal ecology · 2026Article
- Disentangling the drivers of heterogeneity in SARS-CoV-2 transmission from data on viral load and daily contact rates.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Species-specific barriers restrict virus spillover potential across the Caenorhabditis genus.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- Mechanics of pandemics.EClinicalMedicine · 2026Review
- Animal Social Network Structures Across the Fast-Slow Continuum.Ecology letters · 2026Article
- Economic factors promoting vaccine nationalism in the face of viral evolution.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Non-Markovian dynamics and effective reproduction number in COVID-19: Evidence from Cyprus contact tracing data.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Redefining and estimating the early-phase reproduction ratio for epidemic outbreaks in spatially structured populations.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Tracking Dynamics of Superspreading Through Contacts, Exposures, and Transmissions in Edge-Based Network Epidemics.Bulletin of mathematical biology · 2026Article
- From multiplicity of infection to force of infection in sparsely sampled high-transmissioneLife · 2026Article
- Drivers of Variation in the Optimal Spatial Structure of Collective Information Gatherers.Bulletin of mathematical biology · 2026Article
- Data aggregation and mechanistic modeling enable dose-response analysis of SARS-CoV-1 in non-human primates.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Integrating viral kinetics and population spread in a one health framework to explain variant-specific epidemic dynamics.One health (Amsterdam, Netherlands) · 2026Article
- Networks of Indirect Contact Promote Spread of an Environmentally Transmitted Pathogen in a Highly Social Species.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
1,196 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Population-level analyses often use average quantities to describe heterogeneous systems, particularly when variation does not arise from identifiable groups. A prominent example, central to our current understanding of epidemic spread, is the basic reproductive number, R(0), which is defined as the mean number of infections caused by an infected individual in a susceptible population. Population estimates of R(0) can obscure considerable individual variation in infectiousness, as highlighted during the global emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) by numerous 'superspreading events' in which certain individuals infected unusually large numbers of secondary cases. For diseases transmitted by non-sexual direct contacts, such as SARS or smallpox, individual variation is difficult to measure empirically, and thus its importance for outbreak dynamics has been unclear. Here we present an integrated theoretical and statistical analysis of the influence of individual variation in infectiousness on disease emergence. Using contact tracing data from eight directly transmitted diseases, we show that the distribution of individual infectiousness around R(0) is often highly skewed. Model predictions accounting for this variation differ sharply from average-based approaches, with disease extinction more likely and outbreaks rarer but more explosive. Using these models, we explore implications for outbreak control, showing that individual-specific control measures outperform population-wide measures. Moreover, the dramatic improvements achieved through targeted control policies emphasize the need to identify predictive correlates of higher infectiousness. Our findings indicate that superspreading is a normal feature of disease spread, and to frame ongoing discussion we propose a rigorous definition for superspreading events and a method to predict their frequency.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.