The term referring to a disease that is spread by contact between people or animals. Direct contact includes disease spread through eating an infected animal, or through items that the ill individual may have touched, coughed, or sneezed on, or through skin or sexual contact. Indirect contact can occur through pathogens carried via air droplets that linger in a poorly ventilated room. Measles and COVID-19 are two diseases that can be spread through air droplets.All diseases are infectious, meaning they are contracted in the environment. But not all those diseases can be spread to other humans or animals. A person can be infected but non-contagious.During a fast-moving infectious disease outbreak, public health officials respond with tools to stop its spread. First, they try measures aimed at containing the disease, and if that doesn’t succeed, they move to reduce the severity of illness with mitigation efforts.
