3 ms·

Seriously. I'm an infectious disease epidemiologist, and measles is amazingly transmissible.

• Johnny555 8y ago
  As an infectious disease epidemiologist, could you elaborate on that? What is it that makes it so contagious?
  • Fomite 8y ago
    A couple reasons: - While it enters via the lungs, the virus emerges in the trachea, which positions it really well to be aerosolized through coughing. This aerosol and droplet transmission is really efficient. - Measles is relatively stable in the environment, so lingers for a fair amount of time. - It also appears to have a relatively small infectious dose. Other highly contagious diseases, like norovirus, share fairly similar properties - you make a lot of virus, it hangs out for awhile, and you don't need to come in contact with much of it. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4997572/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4997572/