Facebook accounts and telephone records can be used to pinpoint the best individuals to vaccinate to stop a disease outbreak in its tracks, researchers said Wednesday.
Such people would be “central” in their social networks, and thus likelier to spread disease-causing germs from one group to another.
Assuming there is an outbreak, and not enough vaccines for every person in the world, immunising these well-connected individuals would remove social “bridges” by which germs can spread, experts wrote in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
