Quality vs. quantity: Why 'super-shedders' may not be the superspreaders of disease outbreaks
A host that sheds an abundance of parasites might seem like an obvious disease-spreading threat. But new research suggests that shedding large volumes of parasites does not dictate transmission efficiency—and "super-shedders" may not be the superspreaders of infectious disease outbreaks.
Despite the common belief that hosts releasing large quantities of parasites are more likely to spread diseases, recent research challenges this notion. Scientists at the University of British Columbia have found that transmission efficiency is not solely determined by the sheer number of parasites shed by a host. Instead, several factors influence the spread of infectious diseases.
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