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Jargon watch: "supershedders" -- people who spread huge amounts of viral particles.

Mark Frauenfelder at 1:50 pm Fri, Apr 11, 2003

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Forbes article about SARS includes the term "supershedders" -- people who spread huge amounts of viral particles.
"Some viruses like Ebola kill people but don't spread easily. Others spread readily but don't kill," says Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases. "This is extremely virulent, and it spreads easily. It's a really bad combination."

...Another mystery is why the disease has spread efficiently in some locales, like Toronto, but not much at all in the U.S., despite a number of apparent cases among returning travelers. One hypothesis is that some people may be "supershedders" who spread huge amounts of viral particles.

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Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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