smittsamma

Smittsamma is a Swedish adjective meaning contagious or capable of being transmitted from one person to another. It is used primarily in medical and public health contexts to describe diseases, pathogens, or individuals that can spread infections through direct contact, droplets, airborne routes, or other transmission pathways. The term derives from smitta, meaning contagion or infection, combined with the suffix -sam, which yields an adjective indicating a quality.

Usage and nuance: The word is commonly used to distinguish contagious conditions from non-contagious ones. It can describe diseases (smittsamma sjukdomar) or individuals who are infectious (smittsam person). In Swedish discourse, it is often contrasted with smittfri, meaning non-contagious, and with infektiös, a broader term for infectious in a clinical sense.

Public health relevance: Contagiousness, or smittsamma egenskap, is a central concept in epidemiology. It affects how diseases spread and informs control measures. Public health guidance typically targets reducing smittsamma transmission through vaccination, good hygiene, respiratory etiquette, isolations or quarantines when appropriate, and effective contact tracing.

Examples and scope: Common contagious diseases include influenza, varicella (chickenpox), measles, and mumps, which vary in their level of contagiousness. Contagiousness is a property of the pathogen and its interaction with hosts, and it can change with factors such as viral load, symptoms, and behavior.

See also: contagiousness, infection control, epidemiology, transmission routes.