• Question: Do you know how bacteria travels to another person from a flu or illness?

    Asked by TheScienceGeek to Kon on 8 Nov 2016.
    • Photo: Konstantinos Drousiotis

      Konstantinos Drousiotis answered on 8 Nov 2016:

      Hi there,

      Thanks for your question! I think it sounds like you are describing bacterial transmission.

      It normally depends on how fast are the bacteria, what type of organs they can live into and also whether they can survive in the outside environment for long enough to infect a second person.

      The most common ways are by sneezing and coughing as these activities can release millions of bacteria! Also some can be transmitted by sexual intercourse.

      Some bacteria can live in frozen chicken such as Salmonella and Campylobacter, these can then infect the human that eats the infected chicken (when they don’t cook it well).

      Other bacteria can be transmitted to us by consuming contaminated water. This is a particular problem in Africa where there aren’t well established sewage systems. Also, another very common way of transmission in Africa is by insects bites. Some bacteria live in the gut of insects and when these bite us they release the bacteria in our blood. Lyme disease and typhus are caused as such.

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