Diagnostic Applications of the Epidemic Curve

Construction of epidemic curves can refine information about the possible source(s) of the outbreak, enabling development of hypothesises for further environmental and analytical investigation:

These include:

• Refining the estimate of the point in time of occurrence of a focal point source
• Identifying multiple possible sources of exposure
• Distinguishing primary and secondary cases
• Unmasking outbreak source through epidemic curve segmentation

(there could be other examples/topics here)