Is Bronchitis Contagious? - The Most Exact Answer

Bronchitis, a respiratory disease, relates to the bronchi inflammation. Bronchi is the main passageway for the air to come to the lungs. Based upon the time span of the disease, bronchitis is divided into 2 types: chronic bronchitis (long-lasting and repeating) and acute bronchitis (short time). The most common question that causes many arguments is: Is bronchitis contagious?

Is Bronchitis Contagious? - One Of The Most Common Question

You can not have a only one answer to this question. Bronchitis can be contagious and also non-contagious. It depends on the causes of the bronchitis in each person.
Contagious bronchitis is caused by bacterial infections or bacterial viral infections. These kinds of infection lead to serious acute bronchitis or exacerbation of chronic bronchitis. Chronic bronchitis is very different to bronchitis and it is not contagious. However, chronic bronchitis caused by overlying infections in people who already have chronic bronchitis may possibly be infectious.

Acute Bronchitis

This is a serious respiratory system disease. Nearly 90% of acute bronchitis cases are caused by viral infections (by rhinovirus, respiratory syncytial virus or influenza virus...). The acute bronchitis caused by bacterial infections are fairly uncommon. This type of bronchitis is most likely contagious whenever the signs and symptoms occur.
In some specific people who have pre-existing heart or lung diseases such as asthma, a sequence of acute contagious bronchitis could possibly be as a result of the strains of infect elements which are less virulent and failed to cause acute bronchitis in healthy people. This kind of bronchitis isn't contagious. However, it is almost impossible to distinguish more virulent forms from less virulent forms, based on signs only. Therefore, in these cases, bronchitis will less probably be contagious.

Chronic Bronchitis

As mentioned, chronic bronchitis is considered very dissimilar to acute bronchitis. Its grow is caused by continuous inflammation and irritation of air passages in many years. Smoking, passive smoking and long exposure to polluted environment are the main causative factors of chronic bronchitis. It is non-contagious, except if these people have an overlying acute exacerbation due to infect elements (also called acute exacerbation of chronic bronchitis).

How To Prevent The Spread of Bronchitis

 

An easy method to prevent contagious acute bronchitis is avoiding communications with the infected people. Sharing the personal items must be strictly avoided. Vaccines against the common type of respiratory related viruses can also help in protection of acute bronchitis. The infected people should cover their mouth area when sneezing and coughing and attempt to avoid communications with healthy people. They also need to keep sufficient personal cleanliness just like frequently cleaning the hands. To protect yourself from chronic bronchitis, experience of polluted environment, especially polluted air must be avoided (whether as industrial air-borne pollutants or cigarette smoke).
So, is bronchitis contagious ? You finally have the exact answer.