How do you catch a serious illness?

Answer 1

The best way is to hang around with lots of sick people.

Technically many "serious" illnesses are not contagious - i.e you cannot "catch" them from others, but you can still become ill with them. For example, cancer is not contagious (although a few types are caused by a virus, generally in healthy people the virus causes very few problems - your body will naturally destroy it). This is why you do not get "cancer outbreaks" in the same way that there are "seasonal flu outbreaks".

In a similar way, mental illnesses are not considered contagious. You cannot sit next to a clinically depressed person then become clinically depressed yourself. (However there is some evidence to suggest that caring for someone with Alzheimer's Disease increases your chance of developing it).

The major diseases which are "catchable" (or "communicable") are viral hepatitis, HIV, 'flu (pandemic or regular), cholera, typhoid, measles, mumps, polio, some forms of meningitis (not all), chicken pox (not usually deadly but generally kills a couple of children per year in the UK) and noro virus (unpleasant but not typically deadly). All of the above, except HIV, are curable.