Editing Asymptomatic carrier (section)

== Significance in disease transmission ==
The limited information on the prevalence of asymptomatic carriers creates a considerable difficulty when planning public health initiatives. Given that [[disease surveillance]] is dependent on estimates for both the asymptomatic rates and symptomatic rates of disease, the lack of information on the prevalence of carriers can lead to insufficient initiatives for the mitigation of common public health concerns such as ''C. difficile'' or influenza.<ref name=":2">{{cite journal |vauthors=Riggs MM, Sethi AK, Zabarsky TF, Eckstein EC, Jump RL, Donskey CJ |title=Asymptomatic carriers are a potential source for transmission of epidemic and nonepidemic Clostridium difficile strains among long-term care facility residents |journal=Clinical Infectious Diseases |volume=45 |issue=8 |pages=992–998 |date=October 2007 |pmid=17879913 |doi=10.1086/521854 |doi-access=}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |vauthors=Furuya-Kanamori L, Cox M, Milinovich GJ, Magalhaes RJ, Mackay IM, Yakob L |title=Heterogeneous and Dynamic Prevalence of Asymptomatic Influenza Virus Infections |journal=Emerging Infectious Diseases |volume=22 |issue=6 |pages=1052–1056 |date=June 2016 |pmid=27191967 |pmc=4880086 |doi=10.3201/eid2206.151080}}</ref>

Researchers have expressed the desire to better predict transmission methods in order to determine the appropriate public health response.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://www.contagionlive.com/news/asymptomatic-influenza-infection-rates-deserve-more-attention |title = Asymptomatic Influenza Infection Rates Deserve More Attention|last=Perlman|first=William | name-list-style = vanc |date=May 2016|website=Contagion Live |access-date=October 30, 2018}}</ref>  For example, a disease with a known low asymptomatic rate may lead to increased surveillance of symptomatic cases, whereas a higher asymptomatic rate could lead to more aggressive methods such as travel bans and compulsory quarantines, since the number of infectious, asymptomatic cases would be unknown.<ref name=":2" />