As the deadly new coronavirus permeates the planet, scientists are using genetic sequencing and an open-source software tool to track its transmission.
The software tool, called
Nextstrain, can’t predict where the virus is going next. But it can tell us where new cases of the virus are coming from. That’s crucial information for health officials globally, who are trying to determine whether new cases are arriving in their countries through international travel, or being transmitted locally.
This type of analysis, called genomic epidemiology, “is extremely valuable to public health,” says
James Hadfield, a computational scientist working on Nextstrain. “The sooner we can turn around this data, the better the response can be.”
The novel coronavirus, which causes the respiratory disease COVID-19, first emerged in December in China, where it has infected over 80,000 people. It has since spread to
more than 85 countries [PDF], with the largest concentrations of cases so far in South Korea, Iran, and Italy.
More than 250 cases had been confirmed in the United States at press time.
As new cases pop up, it’s important to determine the virus’s origin—whether the infected person contracted the virus locally or in another region. That can inform decisions on travel restrictions, school closures, quarantines, and where to focus resources to contain the outbreak.