Super spreader events and Clusters

Subject: Science and tech

Context:

COVID-19 is spreading fast across urban Kerala which results in multiple clusters and super spreader events. It had begun to show signs of disease transmission going out of control in the next few days.

Concept:

• Super-spreaders are the infectious disease carriers who could transmit the pathogen to a large number of people.
• They could be vegetable vendors, grocery and milk shop owners, petrol pump attendants or garbage collectors, who by the nature of their job carry the risk of getting infected and infecting other
• Cluster refers to an aggregation of cases of a disease. A coronavirus cluster occurs when there is a concentration of infections in the same area at the same time.
• In general, the World Health Organization (WHO) uses the following categories to describe transmission patterns: sporadic cases, clusters of cases and community transmission.
• Sporadic cases refers to a small number of cases (one or more) that are either imported or detected locally; clusters of cases refers to cases that are clustered in time, geographic location and or by common exposures; community transmission refers to larger outbreaks of local transmission that can be defined through different approaches, including big numbers of cases not linkable to transmission chains and multiple unrelated clusters in several areas.