Diseases are everywhere. No matter whether you’ve caught a rhinovirus or a coronavirus, you’ve probably experienced the impact of catching a disease – often, it’s not pretty. At scale, disease can impact more than just one person – as we saw during the COVID-19 pandemic just a few years ago, the wrong illness can have devastating consequences on the community.
Across America, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention play a vital role in protecting the public’s health. Recently, measles, a disease long thought eradicated, threatens to re-emerge as a threat to the community.
For those completing qualifications, such as Texas Woman’s University online FNP program, understanding how diseases spread is vital to protecting yourself during tough times. In this article, we’ll explore how diseases can be transmitted and some ways you can protect yourself.
Types of Disease
When you look up the definition of disease in the encyclopedia, a rather curious definition emerges. A disease is not so much a description of a single type of sickness or condition – instead, it’s the description of abnormalities within the body that affect how an organism functions. That range of variation reflects the sheer variety of disease – there’s lots of different things that can challenge the human condition, affecting us in vastly different ways.
Measles is an example of what’s called a viral infection. Think of measles as a computer bug – designed to survive and thrive in the human body. People get infected by this viral infection, which then effectively hacks their body, causing them to get sick, and become vectors for further transmission.
Viral infections are just one type of disease – there are many different ways that the body can become sick. Although the body typically has a robust immune system, it is constantly under attack by biological threats, such as fungi, parasites, and bacteria.
How Do Diseases Spread?
If diseases are everywhere, how do they spread? The answer varies, depending on the type of illness you contract.
If you think about the spread of disease, like how people travel, you can begin to get some idea of the scope and scale of the threats posed by disease. Three key vectors of disease transmission include other people, animals, or, in some instances, objects.
One of the most well-known disease transmission methods is person-to-person contact. This requires transmission of illness between multiple people, whether that’s exchanging physical contact, coughing or sneezing disease, or even the exchange of bodily fluids, such as during sex.
A method of disease transmission often noted in the media is zoonotic transmission. This involves physical contact with an infected species, such as sharing the same environment or even consuming infected meat.
A widely known example of zoonotic transmission is strains of the influenza virus that emerge from other species, such as pigs (swine flu) and birds (bird flu). These diseases can be highly dangerous if they jump from animal to human, often because the human body simply hasn’t been exposed to such a disease to protect itself.
Sometimes, you don’t even need to have physical contact with a person to contract a highly dangerous disease. Some diseases can survive on surfaces and objects for a time, leading to our third major form of transmission – surface-to-person transmission.
Because of the remarkable survivability of some bacteria, contact with infected surfaces, such as doorknobs and floors, can sometimes lead to catching a disease. A common example is athlete’s foot, an infection that spreads from contaminated surfaces to people.
Why is Measles Dangerous?
With disease so prevalent in the community, why is measles so dangerous?
As it turns out, measles has a combination of characteristics that make it very dangerous. The first is airborne transmission, which allows the illness to be spread far and wide, even with only a few infections. The second is its ability to transmit between children. Given the highly social nature of children, it can become incredibly easy to transmit disease.
The third is a lack of protection within the community. While there is a highly successful vaccination that protects against measles, there are a large number of Americans who have not gotten vaccinated in recent years. Vaccine skepticism can create pockets of risk in the community, allowing for illnesses such as measles to spread.
Recent data published by the CDC noted that, at the time of writing, more than 900 measles cases had been detected across the United States in 2025, starting with initial detections in Texas. This has since spread, with more than half a dozen states now reporting measles cases.
With more than 13% of those cases hospitalised during their illness, the ongoing emergence of measles represents a significant risk to the community, particularly for those who are unvaccinated or immunocompromised.
Staying Protected from Measles
Fortunately, there are a number of things that we can all do to protect ourselves and the people we love from measles. The most important one is to ensure vaccinations are up to date. The measles vaccine is highly effective, so keeping up to date will help protect you from catching this disease.
If you catch measles, it’s important to avoid others if you’re not well. This can help limit the spread of the disease and keep the people around you safe.
Diseases are a significant challenge for the community. With their immense ability to traverse the community, illnesses such as measles and influenza present a risk to people across America. Fortunately, there are things that we can do to protect ourselves and, in a sense, make America healthy again.
