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What is contact tracing?

Contact tracing is the process of identification of persons who may have come into contact with an infected person and subsequent collection of further information about these contacts.

By tracing the contacts of infected individuals, testing them for infection, treating the infected and tracing their contacts in turn, public health aims to reduce infections in the population.

The goals of contact tracing are:

  • To interrupt ongoing transmission and reduce spread of an infection
  • To alert contacts to the possibility of infection and offer preventive counseling or prophylactic care
  • To offer diagnosis, counseling and treatment to already infected individuals
  • If the infection is treatable, to help prevent reinfection of the originally infected patient
  • To learn about the epidemiology of a disease in a particular population

Contact tracing has been a pillar of communicable disease control in public health for decades.

Source:wikipedia.org...
General illustration of Contact Tracing based off of CDC-material.
Contact tracing attempts to find all contacts of a confirmed case, in order to test or monitor them for infection. The goal is to stop the spread of a disease by finding and isolating cases.

Coronavirus: How contact tracing tracks down people at risk of infection

In the face of the coronavirus outbreak, the Ministry of Health's contact tracing team works two shifts, seven days a week, to find close contacts of coronavirus patients. This is how contact tracing is carried out.

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