Introduction
Scabies (medical scabies) is a contagious skin disease with severe itching. It is caused by a special type of mite and its excrements. Despite the unpleasant symptoms, the disease usually does not pose a health hazard. For treatment, effective drugs for application on the skin are available as creams, sprays or ointments as well as tablets.
How contagious is scabies?
For infection with scabies, prolonged physical contact with a person suffering from scabies is necessary, i.e. for at least five to ten minutes. A short touch like shaking hands or a hug usually does not lead to transmission of the pathogenic mites. The pathogens cannot be transmitted via the air either.
Likewise, one does not normally become infected through objects or furniture with which a person suffering from scabies has been in contact. An exception is the highly infectious special form of bark dross. Due to a weakened immune system, the diseased persons usually have a very pronounced infestation with crust formation on the skin. Due to the very high number of pathogens, even brief skin contact can lead to infection in this case. Since the first signs of the disease do not appear until after two to five weeks, a physician should be consulted at an early stage after skin contact in this case.
How long are you contagious?
Scabies is contagious as long as there are scabies mites on the skin. If the scabies is treated with the available drugs (sucking scabicides), they are usually killed after only one or two applications and there is no longer any danger of infection. The itching can nevertheless continue for up to two weeks. Untreated, the number of scabies mites can decrease in a healthy immune system, but they are rarely completely fended off. More often some mites remain on the skin and you are still contagious even if you no longer feel any symptoms such as itching.
What is the route of infection?
The transmission of scabies occurs from person to person. This usually requires prolonged physical contact, e.g. by sleeping together in one bed, cuddling or sexual intercourse. A short touch like shaking hands usually does not lead to infection.
Similarly, infection does not usually occur via objects or furniture with which a sick person has been in contact. In order to become infected with scabies, the pathogenic mites have to get onto their own skin. Mites that are found in mattresses cannot cause scabies because they are different species. Although transmission through animals is possible, these are other mite species that do not survive for long on human skin and therefore only cause mild symptoms and not classic scabies. In such a case the disease heals quickly and a further spreading is not to be feared.
