Poliovirus is highly contagious and infected individuals shed virus in the faeces and from oral secretions, thus the mode of transmission is person-to-person, both via the faecal-oral and the oral-oral routes.

Tickborne relapsing fever (TBRF) is transmitted to humans through the bite of infected soft ticks. The disease is characterised by relapsing or recurring episodes of fever, often accompanied by headache, muscle and joint aches and nausea.

While risk communication is ongoing, crisis communication is a reactive communication effort in the face of an unforeseen event.

Health literacy can be defined as the capacity that an individual has to access and effectively use health-related information, in order to promote and maintain good health.

Health education aims to influence a person’s knowledge, attitudes and behaviours connected to health in a positive way.

Using social marketing tools to conduct public health improvement programs can help to clarify goals and improve success.

Risk communication is a sustained communication process with a diverse audience about the likely outcomes of health and behavioural attitudes.

Advocacy is one strategy to raise awareness and promote health and access to quality health care at the individual and community levels.

An effective outbreak communication can help to bring an outbreak under control as quickly as possible, with as little social disruption as possible.

Since the introduction of vaccination, myths and misconceptions regarding vaccination have been present. Scientific research in psychology has shown that addressing these misconceptions is difficult: mere reading about a myth, even about a myth’s refutation, can strengthen the myth, rather than weaken its influence. Likewise, an explicit and strong negation of a risk can paradoxically increase rather than decrease the perception of risk in readers.