What kinds of infectious skin diseases can you catch without direct contact with someone else?

Answer 1

This is a great question! Unfortunately, there are a lot of infectious skin diseases that can be transmitted from person to person without direct contact.

It all depends on a few factors. First of all, some infectious skin diseases can actually be transmitted via the contact route (touching) and/or the droplet route (talking, coughing, laughing, sneezing, etc.) routes. An example of this is varicella, or the chicken pox virus. A patient can acquire this infectious skin disease without actually touching a patient, if they inhale the infected droplets and are susceptible to the disease themselves (aren't immunized, or don't have enough antibody protection from a chicken-pox illness).

It also depends how long the infectious agent can live on fomites, or inanimate objects (door knobs, grocery store carts, countertops, etc.). These include viruses (herpes simplex, warts, varicella, shingles, etc.), bacteria (staph that cause impetigo, strep), fungal infections (athlete's foot, ringworm, other tinea infections), and parasites (lice, scabies, etc.)

I hope this helps!

~Dr. R