hehehe,
My take on it:
Sell your first symptom, regardless of how cute or horrifying it is. Madagascar doesn't like no symptoms (and neither does Japan).
Then pick, drugs to two, and depending on your location, cold/heat full.
Pick rodents for contamination (just to make sure your main way of contaminating is through ships).
Then wait a bit, see your starting country wither and wait a long time. At first it doesn't seem to do much, but suddenly you'll get a lot of infection spread around the globe (slow ships eh?).
If it takes too long, you can always risk with taking insects aswell.
As soon as you see other countries (besides your starting country) close their borders/harbors/airports, hit all the contamination methods (insects, rodents, water, air) and max out the environmental resistance.
Now its just hoping you managed to infect Madagascar and Japan before they go into lockdown. Even if they don't seem contaminated, give it a sec. Spotting the first case of infection might come with a delay, so even if the harbors and airports are closed you can still infect the countries.
Since you already tripped every alarm, it doesn't hurt to start with the boils, sores and hemorrhaging. Maxing out drugs resistance buys you some time when the vaccine gets made, but if you start dropping sick people quickly enough the hospitals will close in time.
Hope that helps.
![Very Happy :D](./images/smilies/icon_e_biggrin.gif)