History Main / PatientZero

* In ''Zoombies'', patient zero is a monkey named Sandy, who dies and reanimates in a lab. The monkey then spreads the virus to three other monkeys offscreen. Once the monkeys escape the lab, the rest of the zoo’s animals become infected more or less instantly. Another similarly premised movie, ''Aquarium of the Dead'', has an octopus as the patient zero, although the rest of the animals becoming infected is At least justified given this would be a waterborne disease.

* In ''Film/Cooties2014'', the patient zero for a kids-only zombie virus is Shelley Linker, who contracts the virus from an infected chicken nugget. Shelley goes on to infect a bully named Patriot and his friend Dink, the latter of which infects all but two kids in the school during recess (one because they were studying in the library, and the other because of post-pubescent immunity).

--> [[spoiler:Helen]]: I was patient zero.
* In ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'', Section 31 creates a [[{{Synthetic Plague}} devastating virus]] that afflicts Changelings, hoping to bring about a Changeling genocide. The group infects Odo without his knowledge. The virus is spread by linking, so Odo unwittingly passes the pathogen to other Changelings while in the Great Link.

* In ''Series/{{Helix}}'' The CDC rapid response team's best guess is that research scientist Peter Farragut is the first human infectee of NARVIK-B, TheVirus and SyntheticPlague that turns its victims into super-strong [[NotUsingTheZWord Vectors]] compelled to infect others. However, the staff at Arctic Biosystems, the remote research base where the outbreak is occurring, refuse to tell the whole story, and from the rantings of Vectors, other scientists likely [[TestedOnHumans went before him]].

** Jamie in "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances" is Patient Zero of the gas-mask zombie plague.
** In "Sleep No More", much is made of the Patient Zero of the Sandman plague, the first person Dr. Rassmussen tested his anti-sleep experiments on. [[spoiler: It turns out to be an InvokedTrope, designed to give the Doctor a narrative where he stopped the plague and preventing him from discovering the ''real'' vector: [[TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou the recording you just watched]].]]

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In an episode actually called "Patient Zero", the future humanity is ravaged by a plague. A man time travels to the present to kill the plague's patient zero to prevent the plague from happening. Because patient zero turns out to be a beautiful woman, the man can't bring himself to kill her, and instead decides to protect her and prevent her from getting sick in the first place. [[spoiler:Eventually, another time traveler shows up and reveals that in his efforts to prevent the girl from becoming sick, the man himself has become sick and become the new patient zero. The man agrees to be killed, which successfully stops the plague.]]

* It's proposed by a Rokkau that the true cause of TheVirus in ''Literature/JanitorsOfThePostApocalypse'' is that during FirstContact, there was [[FirstContactFauxPas some sort of altercation]] between a venomous [[OctopoidAlien Rokkau]] and one of the human leaders. The venom put her into a comatose state. Human scientists created a viral agent affecting her brain and body that got her moving and eating again, but it spread from there, killing half of the people who contracted it outright and converting the rest into {{Technically Living Zombie}}s.

* Dutifully parodied by ''Webcomic/{{xkcd}}'' in the strip [[http://xkcd.com/734/ Outbreak]].

* In ''Film/Cooties'', the patient zero for a kids-only zombie virus is Shelley Linker, who contracts the virus from an infected chicken nugget. Shelley goes on to infect a bully named Patriot and his friend Dink, the latter of which infects all but two kids in the school during recess (one because they were studying in the library, and the other because of post-pubescent immunity).

* In ''Film/{{Contagion}}'', Patient Zero is Beth Emhoff [[spoiler: although technically the true Patient Zero is the chef that handled the infected pig as shown in a flashback at the end of the movie.]]

* The [[MeaningfulName appropriately named Zero]] of ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' was designed by Dr. Wily to be the original carrier of the Maverick Virus, the very virus that makes Reploids go berserk in the first place. As such, not only is he himself immune to the virus, [[BeneficialDisease he also gains benefits from said virus whenever it enters his system]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'': In the ''Treehouse Of Horror'' segment "Don't Have a Cow, Mankind" (a parody of ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater''), Patient Zero is Kent Brockman, who is reporting on Krusty Burger's new sandwich; Burger 2, which is made from cows that have been fed other cows before slaughter, and unfortunately turns anyone who eats it into a rage zombie. Brockman is the first person to try it, which leads to him becoming infected on camera, and attacking Krusty, with the entire town being overrun by rage zombies in less than a month, as the infection only takes a few seconds to set in.

* The [[MeaningfulName appropriately named Zero]] of ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' was designed by Dr. Wily to be the original carrier of the Maverick Virus, the very virus makes Reploids go berserk in the first place. As such, not only is he himself immune to the virus, [[BeneficialDisease he also gains benefits from said virus whenever it enters his system]].

* In ''Film/{{Outbreak}}'', Patient Zero is a [[spoiler: monkey, and the first human infectee is a man named Jimbo who has the monkey spit in his face when he tries to sell it into the pet trade]].

* A subject in {{Creator/Amoridere}}'s ''Sneezing Blood'' (and its sequels) becomes this when she sneezes blood into a crowd of people, which exposes them to whatever she's sick with and things go south from there. By ''Quarantined'', the doctors start wondering how she works as living host for it.

* A subject in {{Creator/Amoridere}}'s ''Sneezing Blood'' (and its sequels) becomes this when she sneezes blood into a crowd of people, which exposes them to whatever she's sick with and things go south from there. By a ''Quarantined'', the doctors start wondering how she works as living host for it.

* A subject in {{Creator/Amoridere}}'s ''Sneezing Blood'' (and its sequels) becomes this when she sneezes blood into a crowd of people, which exposes them to whatever she's sick with and things go south from there.

* The [[MeaningfulName appropriately named Zero]] of ''VideoGame/MegaManX'' was designed by Dr. Wily to be the original carrier of the Maverick virus, the very virus makes Reploids go berserk in the first place. As such, not only is he himself immune to the virus, [[BeneficialDisease he also gains benefits from said virus whenever it enters his system]].

* A subject in {{Creator/Amoridere}}'s ''Sneezing Blood'' (and its sequels) becomes this when she sneezes blood into a crowd of people, which exposes them to whatever she's sick with.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' episode "Cold Warriors", Fry is patient zero of the common cold which had been eradicated for centuries. He carried the virus after being frozen for a thousand years spreading to the Planet Express crew and Manhattan.

* The pimp in the ''Literature/{{Illuminatus}}'' trilogy, who is unaware he carries the deadly virus and who sparks a panicked manhunt. fortunately he has gone to ground, terrified of arrest after the death of a working girl and after having acquired top-level secrets. He is found dead in a cave.

* In one ''ComicBook/JusticeLeague2011'' story, a failed assassination attempt on Lex Luthor releases a virus from his lab that causes those with super powers to become very sick and gives super powers to normal people which eventually kill them. The original purpose of the virus was to take super powers away. The Justice League hunts down Patient Zero, Armen Ikarus, who has grown into a monster with multiple superpowers, hoping that they can make a cure from them, but this doesn’t work. Instead a cure is made from Superman who had antibodies against the virus because Lex Luthor had previously infected him with it but his immune system had fought it off and he hadn’t spread it to anyone.

* In one ''ComicBook/JusticeLeague'' story, a failed assassination attempt on Lex Luthor releases a virus from his lab that causes those with super powers to become very sick and gives super powers to normal people which eventually kill them. The original purpose of the virus was to take super powers away. The Justice League hunts down Patient Zero who has grown into a monster with multiple superpowers, hoping that they can make a cure from them, but this doesn’t work. Instead a cure is made from Superman who had antibodies against the virus because Lex Luthor had previously infected him with it but his immune system had fought it off and he hadn’t spread it to anyone.

* Patient Zero for the Eurasian pandemic of SPID ([[CallARabbitASmeep AIDS by another name]]) in the Website/AlternateHistoryDotCom story ''Literature/ForAllTime'' was [[spoiler: a Soviet soldier who contracted it from a blood transfusion while in the Congo, then unwittingly spread it by donating his blood every three weeks.]]