THE common cold (flu), pulmonary tuberculosis, pneumonia, chickenpox, measles, hand-foot-mouth disease, meningococcal meningitis and many more infectious diseases are spread by droplet infection or direct contact. They can be transmitted from one person by a sneeze or cough, handshakes or close contact.
However, numerous awareness programmes have not been effective in educating the public as it was never a “felt need” – scary when antibiotic-resistant organisms (like Mycobacterium tuberculosis for instance) can be transmitted by a cough. Now, though, the Covid-19 pandemic requires hand hygiene, physical distancing and masking, and all these also protect against most infectious diseases that can be spread from person to person.
