Infectious Diseases Trivia
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95 free Infectious Diseases trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Smallpox is the only human disease ever eradicated. Tuberculosis still kills more people than any other single pathogen. A cook called Mary spread typhoid without ever feeling ill, and a doctor who told colleagues to wash their hands was driven into an asylum. This infectious disease quiz covers the microbes, the outbreaks and the scientists who fought them: Jenner's cowpox, Pasteur's rabies shot, Koch's postulates, John Snow's pump handle, the 1918 flu, polio, HIV, Ebola, penicillin and the rise of antimicrobial resistance. It works for biology classrooms, nursing students and pub quizzes alike, with every answer sourced and explained.
30 of 95 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which viral illness, common in teenagers and young adults, is nicknamed 'the kissing disease'?
Mononucleosis
Mononucleosis spreads through saliva, so you can catch it by sharing cups or cutlery, not only through kissing.
Q 02Edward Jenner's first vaccination used material from which animal disease?
Cowpox
Cowpox matter came from a sore on milkmaid Sarah Nelmes's hand, and Jenner later exposed his eight-year-old patient to smallpox to prove he was protected.
Q 03Which bacterium causes whooping cough?
Bordetella pertussis
Bordetella pertussis brings on coughing fits that end in a 'whoop' as the patient gasps for breath, yet young babies often don't whoop at all.
Q 04Which 9-year-old, badly bitten by a dog, received Pasteur's rabies vaccine in July 1885?
Joseph Meister
Joseph Meister's recovery drew patients to Pasteur from across the world, and the rush led to the Institut Pasteur, founded in 1887.
Q 05Robert Koch's 1876 discovery of the bacterium causing which disease is considered the birth of modern bacteriology?
Anthrax
Anthrax was the disease: in 1876 Koch cultured Bacillus anthracis and traced its spore-forming life cycle; he later identified the TB and cholera bacteria and won the 1905 Nobel Prize for his TB work.
Q 06Which biting insect spreads the parasite behind sleeping sickness?
Tsetse fly
Tsetse fly bites pass on the parasite, and without treatment sleeping sickness is usually fatal.
Q 07Before germs were understood, which rival idea blamed disease on 'bad air'?
Miasma
Miasma theory lives on in the word malaria, from Italian mala aria, 'bad air', once blamed for marsh fevers.
Q 08Cholera is an infection of the small intestine by which bacterium?
Vibrio cholerae
Vibrio cholerae can kill within hours through severe watery diarrhoea, yet most people it infects show no symptoms and can still spread it.
Q 09Ignaz Semmelweis cut childbed fever deaths in 1847 by making doctors do what?
Wash hands in chlorinated lime
Wash hands in chlorinated lime was his order, and deaths fell sharply, yet Semmelweis struggled to convince his colleagues.
Q 10Which bacterium caused the Black Death?
Yersinia pestis
Yersinia pestis spreads mainly through the bites of infected fleas, and as the Black Death it killed tens of millions of people in 14th-century Europe.
Q 11Which form of plague spreads directly between people through the air?
Pneumonic
Pneumonic plague is almost always fatal if left untreated, yet early antibiotic treatment can save lives.
Q 12The 1918 pandemic was misnamed 'Spanish flu' because of what?
Spain's press was not censored
Spain's press was not censored because Spain stayed neutral in World War I, so its papers reported the outbreak while warring nations kept it quiet.
Q 13Roughly how many people were infected in the 1918–1920 flu pandemic?
500 million
500 million people caught it, and authorities tried to slow its spread with quarantines and limits on public gatherings.
Q 21Which scientist's polio vaccine was tested in 1954 on about a million children called the Polio Pioneers?
Jonas Salk
Jonas Salk had already given his vaccine to himself, his wife and their children before the national trial began.
Q 22As of 2025, which two countries remain endemic for wild poliovirus?
Pakistan and Afghanistan
Pakistan and Afghanistan are the last two endemic countries, and wild polio cases have fallen from an estimated 350,000 in 1988, when the global effort began.
Q 23What was the negative-pressure ventilator used for polio patients commonly called?
The iron lung
Q 14In flu strain names like H1N1, what do the H and N stand for?
Haemagglutinin and neuraminidase
Haemagglutinin and neuraminidase are proteins on the virus's surface, and flu drugs such as oseltamivir (Tamiflu) work by blocking the neuraminidase.
Q 15In 2024, which disease was the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent worldwide?
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis is preventable and curable, yet it killed an estimated 1.23 million people in 2024, more than any other single infectious agent.
Q 16Which illness is named after a deadly 1976 outbreak at a convention in Philadelphia?
Legionnaires' disease
Legionnaires' disease comes from bacteria that thrive in water systems, so people catch it by breathing mist from places such as hot tubs and cooling towers.
Q 17Malaria is caused by single-celled parasites of which genus?
Plasmodium
Plasmodium parasites travel in the bite of an infected mosquito, which is why avoiding mosquito bites, along with preventive medicines, protects against malaria.
Q 18In 2024, which WHO region had about 95% of malaria deaths?
Africa
Africa is dominated by the deadliest malaria parasite species, the one behind most malaria deaths worldwide.
Q 19Dengue fever is chiefly spread by mosquitoes of which genus?
Aedes
Aedes mosquitoes, chiefly Aedes aegypti, can bite at any time of day, which is why WHO urges people to avoid bites especially during daytime.
Q 20Which virus causes chickenpox and, on reactivation, shingles?
Varicella-zoster virus
Varicella-zoster virus hides in nerves after chickenpox, and a shingles rash can pass on chickenpox, never shingles, to someone who hasn't had it.
The iron lung, a sealed tank that breathed for a paralysed patient by cycling the air pressure around the body, was usually needed for one to two weeks, though some patients lived inside one for decades.
Q 24Which doctor traced an 1854 London cholera outbreak to a single public water pump?
John Snow
John Snow mapped the cases around the Broad Street pump in Soho and had its handle removed.
Q 25Who shared the 1945 Nobel Prize in Medicine with Fleming for penicillin?
Florey and Chain
Florey and Chain's Oxford team revived penicillin a decade after Fleming set it aside, purifying it and running the first clinical trials.
Q 26Which German scientist won the 1939 Nobel Prize for finding that the red dye Prontosil fights bacteria?
Gerhard Domagk
Gerhard Domagk, in desperation, gave Prontosil to his own daughter when a streptococcal infection threatened her life, and she fully recovered.
Q 27HIV belongs to which class of virus?
Retrovirus
Retrovirus is HIV's class: it uses reverse transcriptase to copy its RNA genome into DNA that is then inserted into the host cell's chromosomes, which is why the infection cannot be cleared.
Q 28Which NBA star announced in 1991 that he had HIV and was retiring?
Magic Johnson
Magic Johnson came back to play in the 1992 All-Star Game anyway and was named its most valuable player.
Q 29Which mosquito-borne virus caused a 2015 epidemic in Brazil linked to babies born with microcephaly?
Zika
Zika spread so alarmingly that WHO declared it a global public health emergency in February 2016, because of the birth defects it caused.
Q 30Which animals are believed to be the natural host of Ebola viruses?
Fruit bats
Fruit bats are thought to be the virus's natural host, which is why health agencies warn against handling or eating raw bushmeat.