transmission routes

Direct Contact

Transmission via physical touch, kissing, or sexual contact between host and susceptible person.

Droplet Transmission

Transmission via large respiratory droplets traveling short distances, typically one meter or less.

Airborne Transmission

Transmission via small droplet nuclei remaining infectious over time and distance.

Vehicle-Borne Transmission

Transmission via inanimate media like food, water, biological products, and fomites.

Vector-Borne Transmission

Transmission via living vectors such as insects, arthropods, or rodents.

Fomite

An inanimate object or material that can passively transmit infectious agents.

Zoonotic Transmission

Infectious disease transmission from vertebrate animals to humans.

Vertical Transmission

Transmission of an infection from mother to child across the placenta, during birth, or via breast milk.

Fecal-Oral Route

Transmission when pathogens in fecal particles pass from one person to the mouth of another.

Mechanical Vector

A vector that carries a pathogen on its body surface without being infected itself.

Biological Vector

A vector in which the pathogen undergoes development or multiplication before transmission.