We extend the N-intertwined mean-field approximation (NIMFA) for the susceptible-infectious-susceptible (SIS) epidemiological process to time-varying networks. Processes on time-varying networks are often analyzed under the assumption that the process and network evolution happen on different timescales. This approximation is called timescale separation. We investigate timescale separation between disease spreading and topology updates of the network. We introduce the transition times T(r) and T¯(r) as the boundaries between the intermediate regime and the annealed (fast changing network) and quenched (static network) regimes, respectively, for a fixed accuracy tolerance r. By analyzing the convergence of static NIMFA processes, we analytically derive upper and lower bounds for T¯(r). Our results provide insights and bounds on the time of convergence to the steady state of the static NIMFA SIS process. We show that, under our assumptions, the upper-transition time T¯(r) is almost entirely determined by the basic reproduction number R0 of the network. The value of the upper-transition time T¯(r) around the epidemic threshold is large, which agrees with the current understanding that some real-world epidemics cannot be approximated with the aforementioned timescale separation.

Finding the source of an epidemic is important, because correct source identification can help to stop a budding epidemic or prevent new ones. We investigate the backward equations of the N-intertwined mean-field approximation susceptible-infectious-susceptible (SIS) process. The backward equations allow us to trace the epidemic back to its source on networks of sizes up to at least N=1500. Additionally, we show that the source of the "more realistic"Markovian SIS model cannot feasibly be found, even in a "best-case scenario,"where the infinitesimal generator Q, which completely describes the epidemic process and the underlying contact network, is known. The Markovian initial condition s(0), which reveals the epidemic source, can be found analytically when the viral state vector s(t) is known at some time t as s(0)=s(t)e-Qt. However, s(0) can hardly be computed, except for small times t. The numerical errors are largely due to the matrix exponential e-Qt, which is severely ill-behaved.