How can you avoid droplet infection?
Avoiding infection by droplet infection often proves to be very difficult. It is possible to wear a mouth guard and thus prevent pathogens from making contact with the nasal and oral mucosa via the air. In everyday life, however, this measure cannot be implemented very well.Although regular hand washing and hand disinfection is an important and decisive measure to reduce the risk of infection, it does not help to protect against the diseases that enter the body via droplet infection.
It is very important to keep a sufficient distance from people who have a bacterial or viral infection. It must be remembered that the pathogens can travel a distance of up to 3 meters in the air. For those who are ill, always sneeze into a handkerchief and cough to prevent the pathogens from being transmitted into the air.
There are effective vaccines against some serious diseases, especially childhood diseases. This prevents illness and thus also protects people in the surrounding area from infection. Among the infections against which vaccinations can be administered are measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, diphtheria and whooping cough.
Here, there is an urgent recommendation to have children vaccinated in time, as the diseases can take a very serious course. There is also a vaccine against influenza, i.e. the real flu, which is regularly updated depending on which subtypes of the virus are currently circulating. Here, however, the vaccination recommendation exists only for older people (60 years and older) and for people with previous illnesses. In addition, people with a strong immune system have a lower risk of getting infected by the pathogens in the body. Healthy nutrition and sufficient exercise help to strengthen the immune system.
The droplet infection through kissing
Particularly when kissing, there is contact between mucous membranes, which can contain pathogens. This is also a droplet infection, whereby the pathogens do not whirl through the air in the form of droplets. However, it has been found that “cold viruses” are very rarely transmitted during kissing.
Droplet infections are much more common when sneezing, coughing or speaking. It is assumed that the pathogens reach the stomach via saliva during kissing and are destroyed there by gastric acid. There are also studies that show that kissing strengthens the immune system and thus reduces the risk of disease outbreak. In addition, kissing releases adrenaline and other happiness hormones that strengthen the metabolism and immune system and prevent viral or bacterial disease.
