CONTAG

Contag is a term sometimes used to refer to contagion, the process by which infectious diseases spread from one person to another. In contemporary epidemiology, the standard terms are contagion, contagiousness, and transmission, and “contag” is not a widely used formal term, though it may appear in non-specialist writing or as shorthand.

Etymology and scope: The concept derives from Latin contagio, from contagere “to touch,” with the modern noun contagion and the adjective contagious related to the same root. Contagion describes how pathogens move between hosts, while infection is the outcome of a successful entry and replication of the pathogen. A disease is described as contagious if it can be readily transmitted between people under typical conditions.

Transmission routes: Contagion can occur through several pathways. Direct contact includes skin-to-skin or sexual contact. Indirect contact involves touching contaminated objects (fomites). Respiratory droplets from coughing or sneezing can spread disease, and some pathogens transmit via aerosols or airborne particles. Vector-borne transmission involves organisms such as mosquitoes or ticks. Some diseases spread through the fecal-oral route. Not all infections are contagious in the same way; for example, vector-borne diseases may require a vector rather than direct human-to-human transmission.

Measuring contagiousness: Epidemiologists use metrics such as the basic reproduction number (R0), effective reproduction number, serial interval, generation time, and the secondary attack rate to describe how readily a disease spreads.

Public health implications: Contagious diseases are managed through isolation or quarantine, vaccination, hygiene and sanitation, ventilation improvements, and contact tracing to interrupt transmission chains. Examples of highly contagious diseases include influenza and measles; diseases transmitted primarily by vectors are not considered contagious in the human-to-human sense.