 Hey everybody, Dr. O here. In this video I want to talk about the three different types of contact transmission. Obviously there's lots of ways for infectious diseases to be transmitted from one person to another, but I want to cover the three types of contact transmission. So we have direct contact transmission, indirect contact transmission and droplet transmission. So they all involve you directly touching someone that is sick or touching something that they have contaminated. So here we see direct contact transmission. You see somebody kissing a baby, you see people touching hands. Obviously those are great, very important things. I hope my son's hand every day, I kiss him every day, but these are great ways for microbes and pathogens to be spread, right? So that's direct contact transmission. I'm sick, I touch you, you get sick, right? So that is direct contact transmission. Think about like sexually transmitted infections being the same type of thing. Next here we have indirect contact transmission and this is going to involve touching an inanimate object. So instead of me touching you and you getting sick from that, I touch something that you then touch. So this inanimate object that can spread disease is called a fomite. So fomite's a very important term. Here we see a door handle, a towel and a needle, right? Obviously sharing needles and stuff like that. So indirect contact transmission is I touch something and contaminate it, you then touch the same thing. So sharing a computer keyboard or a mouse or the door handles are a great thing, a great example. Obviously sharing needles, a huge no-no. So that is indirect contact transmission. The third type, I just love this picture, but the third type of contact transmission is droplet transmission, whereas so direct contact transmission, I touch you and get you infected and sick. Indirect contact transmission, I touch something you touch. Droplet transmission is, and this is not airborne, right? Airborne diseases are different. So here's how I delineate the two and this is a meter, right? Droplet transmission, this guy is spewing microorganisms about a meter out around from where he's sneezing. So these droplets are going to either touch you if he sneezes in your face or they're going to land on something. So think of it that way. So droplet transmission, you're going to be contaminated by touching a droplet, whether I cough or sneeze in your face or it gets on something that you then touch. So that's going to be droplet transmission. And then that meter is not a golden rule, but it's important to delineate between respiratory disease. So like an airborne disease, if I was like a measles or something, if I was in the same room as you were even an hour earlier, I could still be giving you the disease. Droplet transmission is a form of contact transmission. All right. So that's direct contact transmission, indirect contact transmission which uses a fomite and droplet transmission. I hope that helps. Have a wonderful day. Be blessed.