Sickness – Illness and Infection in DayZ

Surviving in DayZ isn’t just about avoiding bullets and zombies – it’s also about staying healthy. This comprehensive DayZ sickness guide will help you understand how to cure illness in DayZ and manage infection treatment in DayZ’s harsh survival environment. In vanilla DayZ, sickness and disease can strike if you’re not careful, causing your character to sneeze, vomit, or worse. Below, we’ll cover the illness and infection system, give an overview of each disease, and explain how to recognize, treat, and prevent them. By the end of this guide, you’ll know exactly what to do when your survivor falls ill.

Overview of Illness and Infection in DayZ

DayZ’s illness system adds an extra layer of challenge to survival. Your character can catch various diseases through poor hygiene, unsafe food or water, harsh weather, or risky actions. When you become sick, a germ icon appears on your HUD, indicating an active infection. Symptoms like coughing, sneezing, vomiting, or fever will soon follow depending on the disease. Each sickness has specific causes and requires a particular cure or strategy to overcome.

Behind the scenes, your survivor’s immune system plays a big role in fighting infections. A well-fed, hydrated, and warm character with full health and blood has a stronger immunity and is less likely to get sick. Conversely, if you are cold, wounded, malnourished or dehydrated, you’re more vulnerable to illnesses. Taking multivitamin pills can boost your immunity temporarily, which helps prevent infections or shorten their duration. It’s also important to note that some illnesses are contagious – if you’re near other sick survivors or you share food/drinks with them, you could catch what they have. Always be cautious when you or others show signs of sickness.

Now, let’s go through the full list of diseases in vanilla DayZ – Cholera, Salmonella (Food Poisoning), the Common Cold, Influenza (Flu), Wound Infection, and Kuru. We’ll explain how each illness is contracted, how to recognize its symptoms, the proper treatment, prevention strategies, and the long-term risks if you leave it untreated. Let’s dive in!

Cholera

• Causes: Cholera is a bacterial infection primarily caused by drinking unsafe, contaminated water. If your character drinks from ponds, lakes, or streams without purifying the water, there’s a high chance of contracting Cholera. Using an infected or dirty container (like a found plastic bottle or jerrycan that hasn’t been disinfected) can also give you cholera. In rare cases, sharing water or food with a sick survivor, or receiving a blood transfusion from someone who has cholera, can infect you as well.
• Recognizing symptoms: The hallmark symptom of cholera is persistent vomiting. Your survivor will vomit frequently, especially after trying to eat or drink, because the disease drastically lowers your stomach’s capacity. You’ll notice a fever (your character may occasionally wipe their forehead and you may see a blurry screen as their body temperature rises). Because of the vomiting and fever, your hydration will drop at an alarming rate. Keep an eye on your water and energy levels – cholera causes you to lose about 450 mL of water and 300+ calories each time you vomit, leading to rapid dehydration and hunger.
• Treatment: The most effective cure for cholera is to use Tetracycline Pills, which are antibiotics. As soon as you suspect cholera (sickness icon after drinking unsafe water and repeated vomiting), take a tetracycline pill. Continue to dose with tetracycline regularly – **do not** wait for the sickness to fully return; take another pill as soon as the previous dose wears off. It often takes several pills over time to fully eliminate the infection. You can also take multivitamin pills alongside antibiotics to boost your immunity; using both together helps you recover faster. While treating, **only consume small sips of water or small bites of food at a time** to avoid triggering more vomiting. By pacing your intake, you can keep some nutrients down. If medicine is scarce, a well-fed and hydrated survivor with full health can sometimes fight off cholera naturally, but this is risky and prolonged. It’s best to find the proper meds if at all possible.
• Prevention: The key to preventing cholera is safe water and hygiene. **Always purify water** taken from natural sources. You can sterilize collected water by boiling it in a pot over a fire or by using chlorine tablets to chemically purify it. Water from wells and pumps is generally safe, but make sure your hands and containers are clean: if your character has bloody hands (for example, after gutting an animal or human), **do not drink or eat with bloody hands** – first, wash your hands in a pond or with a water bottle. Using dirty hands can contaminate even clean water or food with bacteria. Likewise, disinfect containers like canteens or bottles with alcohol or chlorine if you aren’t sure of their origin; freshly spawned bottles have a chance to carry the cholera pathogen. By sticking to treated water and good hygiene (and avoiding others’ germs), you can almost entirely avoid cholera.
• Risks if untreated: If cholera is left untreated or poorly managed, the continuous vomiting will cause severe dehydration and eventually starvation. An untreated cholera infection will weaken you rapidly – you may become dehydrated enough to start losing consciousness (blacking out) and your character can **die** from organ failure due to lack of fluids/energy. Always take cholera seriously: without intervention, it can be one of the most deadly illnesses in DayZ.

Salmonella (Food Poisoning)

• Causes: Salmonella in DayZ is essentially food poisoning. You contract Salmonella by ingesting bacteria from contaminated food or hands. The most common cause is eating **raw or undercooked meat**. If you kill a chicken, animal, or even a survivor and eat the meat without cooking it thoroughly, you risk getting food poisoning. Rotten food will also often make you sick. Additionally, eating with **bloody hands** can transfer bacteria into your mouth – after skinning an animal or handling guts, your hands are coated in blood and germs; if you then eat or drink without washing, you’re very likely to fall ill. Drinking water with bloody hands has the same effect. Even cooked meat from certain wild animals (notably wolf or bear steak) carries a small chance of infection if the meat was naturally diseased, so be cautious with wild game. Finally, receiving a blood transfusion from a survivor who has Salmonella can infect you, though this scenario is less common.
• Recognizing symptoms: Food poisoning from salmonella presents very similarly to cholera at first: your character will start vomiting repeatedly, especially after eating or drinking. Each vomit incident drains hydration and calories, so you’ll see your water and food stats plummet. You might hear your survivor make occasional pained grunts and notice slight screen blur as well, due to the discomfort. Unlike cholera, a high fever is less pronounced in basic Salmonella infection, but the constant nausea and vomiting are tell-tale signs. Essentially, if you ate something questionable and now your stomach is emptying itself, you likely have Salmonella food poisoning.
• Treatment: To cure a Salmonella infection, the best medicine is Charcoal Tablets. Charcoal tablets act as a purgative/absorbent that helps your body eliminate the toxins. At the first sign of food poisoning (sickness indicator and vomiting), take a charcoal tablet. Like with any illness, you may need more than one dose – take another as soon as the effect of the first tablet wears off, until the sickness icon disappears and vomiting stops. Multivitamin pills can also aid your immune system during this time, helping you fight off the infection faster. **Do not eat or drink in large amounts while treating Salmonella**; stick to tiny sips of water or small bites if absolutely needed, because filling your stomach will likely cause more vomiting and prolong the illness. If you don’t have medicine, you can try to ride it out by staying warm, hydrated, and well-fed in small increments – your immune system can eventually clear the bacteria. However, this natural recovery is slow and risky, so securing charcoal tablets is highly recommended.
• Prevention: Food safety is paramount in DayZ to avoid Salmonella. **Always cook meat thoroughly** before eating it – use a fireplace or stove and make sure the meat changes to the “cooked” color. Avoid eating anything raw or rotten. If you have raw meat or fat from animals, consider them dangerous until cooked. In an emergency, if you must eat something with a risk (like slightly raw meat), taking a multivitamin pill right as you eat can sometimes bolster your immunity enough to prevent infection, but this isn’t guaranteed. Just as important: **wash your hands after handling bloody things**. If you’ve butchered an animal or human, find water to wash your hands (look at a water bottle or pond and use the Wash Hands action). Alternatively, wear latex gloves or surgical gloves when performing those tasks – gloves will get bloody instead of your hands, and you can simply discard or clean the gloves. By cooking all food, avoiding known unsafe items (like rotten fruits or unknown canned goods), and maintaining good hygiene, you can prevent most cases of food poisoning.
• Risks if untreated: Like cholera, untreated Salmonella food poisoning can be lethal. The continuous vomiting will dehydrate and weaken you. If you cannot keep fluids down, you’ll suffer from dehydration and calorie loss, leading to dizziness and eventual unconsciousness. A survivor who ignores food poisoning will likely **die** from dehydration or malnutrition after enough time, since they won’t be able to retain the water and food needed to live. Even if death is avoided, a prolonged illness leaves you vulnerable to threats because you’ll be frequently stopping to vomit and managing low stats. It’s vital to address food poisoning quickly so it doesn’t reach that critical stage.

Common Cold

• Causes: The Common Cold in DayZ is a viral infection that strikes when your body temperature stays low for too long or when you’re exposed to an already sick player. If you spend extended time soaking wet and cold (for example, caught in the rain without proper gear or warmth), your character becomes susceptible to catching a cold. This is essentially your survivor getting chilled to the bone – once your “heat comfort” stat stays in the blue (cold) zone for several minutes, a hidden timer starts that can eventually trigger a cold. Additionally, being around other survivors who are sneezing or coughing can give you the infection via droplets. Sharing items (like drinking from the same canteen or eating leftover food) that were handled by a sick person can also pass on the virus. In short, prolonged cold exposure or close contact with someone who has a cold/flu are the main ways to catch it.
• Recognizing symptoms: A common cold in DayZ has relatively mild symptoms initially: the key sign is **frequent sneezing**. Your character will randomly sneeze, complete with an audible sound that other players nearby can hear. You might also notice your character shivers occasionally (visible shaking or a shivering sound) if they remain cold. Unlike more severe illnesses, the common cold does *not* cause vomiting or immediate health loss. There is no fever in the early cold stage, so you won’t see the forehead wipe animation yet – that comes with more advanced illness. Essentially, if you find your survivor is sneezing every so often and you’ve been out in the cold rain or around sick players, you’ve likely caught a common cold.
• Treatment: The common cold can often be beaten with basic care. **Warming up** is one of the simplest “treatments” – if you raise your body temperature back to normal (white thermometer icon on your HUD) and keep it there, the cold will eventually subside on its own after roughly 30 minutes or so. However, most players will want to cure it faster to stop the sneezes. You can take a dose of tetracycline (even though it’s an antibiotic, in-game it will help suppress the cold virus) along with a multivitamin. Using Tetracycline Pills and vitamins together provides the best chance to kill the virus quickly – often a single course of pills (sometimes more than one pill consecutively) will clear the infection. Remember to re-dose if the sickness indicator hasn’t gone away by the time the medicine effect icon wears off. While treating a cold, continue to stay warm (build a fire or find shelter and dry clothes) because being warm significantly speeds up recovery. Also, there are pain relief meds like Codeine pills or morphine which won’t cure the cold but can reduce the frequency of sneezing temporarily – this is useful if you need to be quiet, but these are optional. In summary, cure the common cold by staying warm and using medicine to boost your immune response until the virus is gone.
• Prevention: To avoid catching a cold in the first place, **manage your body temperature** and practice social distancing from sick players. Always try to keep dry and warm: if you get wet from rain or swimming, dry off as soon as possible (wring out your clothes, stand near a fire, or change into dry clothing). Carry heat sources or wear warm clothes when traveling through cold areas. If you notice your temperature icon turning blue, seek warmth before it’s too late. Another tip: if you warm up by a fire and then leave, the game gives you a short resistance to the cold (a few minutes grace period) – use that time wisely to find better shelter or gear. In terms of contagion, if a player near you is sneezing, it’s best to keep at least a few meters distance or wear a mask (masks won’t 100% stop it, but they can slightly reduce droplet spread). **Don’t share drinks or food** with someone who’s sick, and dispose of any food or drink that an infected person might have contaminated. By staying warm and being careful around the infected, you can largely prevent the common cold from ever affecting you.
• Risks if untreated: The common cold itself is not deadly – if you ignore it, you’ll just keep sneezing and being annoyed. However, the danger is that a cold will **progress into a more serious illness** if you remain cold or your immune system stays weak. In DayZ, an unchecked common cold will advance to Influenza (the flu) after some time (roughly 15–25 minutes of continued low body temperature while sick). Influenza has heavier symptoms and can then progress further to pneumonia, which *is* potentially lethal. So while a cold won’t kill you directly, leaving it untreated in bad conditions can set you on a path to severe sickness. Also, sneezing uncontrollably can be dangerous for other reasons – it gives away your position to both zombies and other players. Many a survivor has been snuck up on because their character’s sneeze alerted others. So, it’s wise to treat even a cold so it doesn’t become a bigger problem for your health or safety.

Influenza (Flu)

• Causes: Influenza, or the flu, is essentially the second stage of the common cold infection in DayZ. You “contract” influenza when a common cold is allowed to worsen. If you already have a cold and you continue to stay in cold conditions (blue temperature icon) or you don’t take any steps to cure it, the virus will escalate. In gameplay terms, after about 10–20 minutes of an active cold (depending on how frozen you are), it will progress into full-blown influenza. Being around someone with influenza can also infect you (just like with the cold) via their coughing and sneezing, but typically flu doesn’t just spontaneously occur on its own – it’s a progression from a cold that wasn’t managed. So, think of flu as what happens when you really let a cold get out of hand.
• Recognizing symptoms: The flu has more intense symptoms than the mild common cold. If your illness progresses to influenza, you will notice **coughing** in addition to continued sneezing. Your character will start coughing frequently, which is another audible symptom that can draw unwanted attention. Moreover, influenza introduces a **fever**. You’ll see signs of fever such as the character wiping their forehead and experiencing bouts of blurry vision. The fever also causes your hydration to deplete faster (because your body temperature is elevated). Essentially, a flu in DayZ is characterized by sneezing + coughing + fever all together. You might also have the chills and shakes from the fever. If you find that you’ve gone from just sneezing to now also coughing regularly, your common cold has likely advanced to influenza.
• Treatment: Treating influenza is similar to treating the common cold, but you need to be a bit more diligent because the illness is stronger. **Get warm immediately.** Raising your body temperature to neutral or hot will stop the flu from getting even worse (the next stage after flu is pneumonia, which you definitely want to avoid). If you can maintain a warm state, the flu will eventually downgrade back to a common cold and then clear, but this takes time – roughly 30–40 minutes of being warm for the flu stage to subside to a cold, and additional time to fully recover. To speed things up and actually cure the flu, use a combination of tetracycline antibiotics and multivitamins just like with the cold. Take a tetracycline pill as soon as you can, and keep taking one whenever the previous dose expires until the sickness icon is gone. Also take a vitamin pill to boost immunity. Both types of pills can be taken together safely; doing so is often the fastest way to kill the virus. While sick with influenza, continue to **stay hydrated and fed** (small sips and bites, as flu might reduce your appetite and you may not want to risk vomiting if your stomach is upset from coughing). There is no direct “cough medicine” in DayZ, but if you have codeine painkillers or morphine, using one will halve the frequency of your sneezing and coughing for a short period – this can be handy to maintain stealth or just to get some relief while the meds do their work. Overall, curing influenza means staying warm, taking your pills on schedule, and riding it out until symptoms fade.
• Prevention: The best way to prevent influenza is to **never let a common cold get that far**. All the preventive steps for the cold apply here: keep dry and warm, avoid prolonged exposure to cold weather, and steer clear of infected individuals. If you do catch a cold, treat it promptly before it has a chance to progress. Taking a multivitamin right when you notice a cold can sometimes stop it from worsening. Also, if you’re sick, be considerate of others – isolate yourself or wear a mask to avoid spreading it. In terms of direct flu prevention, if you know someone has the flu (they’re coughing and sneezing a lot), you should maintain distance or even avoid them entirely, since the flu is very contagious through the air. In summary, good hygiene, warmth, and quick action on early cold symptoms will prevent the flu stage from ever happening during your playthrough.
• Risks if untreated: Influenza is more dangerous than the common cold. If you ignore the flu, it can further progress into **pneumonia**, which is the third and final stage of this illness chain. Pneumonia in DayZ will include all the flu symptoms plus more severe effects like heavy coughing fits, extreme fever, and it **will start to directly damage your health** over time. Pneumonia can absolutely kill your character if not treated – your health will drop and you could die from it. Therefore, leaving a flu untreated (and staying in cold conditions) essentially puts your survivor at risk of a lethal illness. Even before reaching that point, having influenza makes you weaker (faster water loss from fever can lead to dehydration if you aren’t careful). And again, the noise of constant coughing and sneezing can attract zombies or hostile players, putting you in peril. To keep yourself safe, you should always treat the flu seriously. It’s a sickness you want to resolve before it evolves into something that can outright end your life.

Wound Infection

• Causes: Wound infections occur when you treat injuries with dirty materials or neglect them altogether. Any time your character bleeds (from a zombie hit, gunshot, animal attack, etc.), you need to bandage or stitch the wound. If you **use dirty rags or bandages** (ones that have not been disinfected) to stop the bleeding, you risk introducing bacteria into the wound. Likewise, using a sewing kit on a wound without disinfecting it first can cause infection. Even using pristine bandages can be risky if they were previously used or not sterile. Another major cause is letting a wound **heal on its own without bandaging** – if you just leave your character bleeding until it stops naturally, the open wound can easily get infected from the environment. Essentially, any bleeding injury not properly cleaned and bandaged with sterile materials has a chance to become infected shortly after the bleeding stops.
• Recognizing symptoms: A wound infection doesn’t cause immediate obvious symptoms like vomiting or loud noises, so you have to pay attention to more subtle cues. After an untreated or poorly treated wound closes up, if it’s infected, a **bacteria icon** will appear on your HUD (the same sickness icon used for other illnesses). In early stages of a wound infection, your character will occasionally make a mild **pain sound** (grunts) and you’ll experience slight **blurred vision** pulses, indicating discomfort. You may also notice that your stamina is regenerating more slowly than normal. These are Stage 1 symptoms of a wound infection. If not treated, the infection will progress to Stage 2: at that point, the pain sounds get louder and more frequent, the screen blur happens more often, and you’ll develop a **fever** (your character will start to get hot and do the forehead wipe animation). In Stage 2, your hands may begin to tremble (shaking aim), and importantly, you start suffering physical stat penalties: your character will lose water at an accelerated rate (about 10x normal water loss) and even start **losing health gradually** (roughly 2.5 health points per minute). This means in Stage 2, if the infection continues unchecked, it will eventually kill you (as your health ticks down). So if you see a sickness icon after bandaging, and especially if you start getting feverish and shaky from a wound, you know you have a wound infection.
• Treatment: Treating a wound infection depends on how far it has progressed. **If the infection is still in Stage 1 (no fever yet, just minor pain and blur):** you can cure it by **disinfecting the wound site immediately.** Use an antiseptic like disinfectant spray, iodine tincture, or an alcohol-based tincture on the wound. Applying any of these to the infected wound in Stage 1 will kill the local bacteria and stop the infection. (Using disinfectants in Stage 2 can still help a bit, but it will only pause the progression temporarily, not cure it outright.) If the infection has advanced to **Stage 2 (fever and health loss present):** topical disinfectants alone won’t save you. At this point, you need systemic antibiotics – begin taking Tetracycline pills immediately. It usually requires multiple tetracycline doses in a row (around 2 to 4 pills in total, spaced as each one’s effect runs out) to fully cure a Stage 2 wound infection. Keep taking tetracycline until the sickness icon disappears and your health loss stops. While treating, try to keep yourself hydrated and fed to counteract the water and health loss in Stage 2. If you catch the infection early, one bottle of disinfectant applied to the wound is enough to fix it. If you catch it late, stock up on antibiotics or you won’t make it.
• Prevention: Preventing wound infection is straightforward: **always use clean medical supplies on wounds**. Before you need them, prepare some rags or bandages by disinfecting them. You can disinfect rags, bandages, and sewing kits by using disinfectant spray or tincture on them in your inventory (they will get a “disinfected” tag). Keep in mind that if a disinfected item gets damaged (for example, you kept disinfected rags in your jacket and the jacket got badly damaged), it may lose its sterility. When in doubt, disinfect again. It’s wise to carry a bottle of alcohol or iodine in your first aid kit so you can clean both the wound and the materials. If you have the option, use proper sterile bandages instead of makeshift rags – they have a lower chance of causing infection if pristine. And above all, **do not let wounds bleed unattended**. Even if you have no bandages, try to find *something* to stop the bleeding rather than letting it clot on its own. A 5-minute untreated bleed has a very high chance (upwards of 40%) to result in infection. By using sterilized bandages or rags immediately on every bleed, you nearly eliminate the chance of a wound infection.
• Risks if untreated: An untreated wound infection is one of the few sicknesses in DayZ that *guarantees* death if you do nothing. Once it progresses to the second stage, your health will continuously decline. If you were at full health when Stage 2 began, you have roughly 40 minutes before the health loss kills you (2.5 points per minute, out of a 100 health scale). But long before death, the fever and shakes will weaken you, making combat or movement difficult. You could fall unconscious from the health loss or get easily overwhelmed by enemies due to blurred vision and low stamina. In short, ignoring a wound infection isn’t an option – it will eventually **kill your character**. It’s a slow, painful way to go, so always treat wound infections promptly.

Kuru (Brain Prion Disease)

• Causes: Kuru is a rare disease in DayZ, only caused by **cannibalism**. In game terms, Kuru is referred to as Brain Prion Disease – it occurs when you consume human flesh. Eating any amount of human meat (steaks), human fat, or even human guts can infect you. It doesn’t matter if you cook it or eat it raw; *no amount of cooking can prevent the prion disease*. If the food came from a human body, it’s tainted. The more you eat, the more certain the infection becomes, but all it really takes is one bite of long pig to seal your fate. There is no other way to get Kuru – zombies won’t give it to you, and it’s not in animals. It’s purely the consequence of eating other survivors.
• Recognizing symptoms: After indulging in human meat, there is a delay before Kuru symptoms start (approximately 15–30 minutes of game time). The disease then reveals itself with very distinct and unsettling symptoms. The primary sign of Kuru is **uncontrollable laughter**. Your character will randomly burst into maniacal giggling or laughing fits without any input from you. These outbursts happen at unpredictable intervals – sometimes you might go several minutes quiet, other times you’ll laugh multiple times in a single minute. The laughter is loud and can be heard by anyone nearby, which is dangerous for stealth. Another symptom is a type of neurological tremor: you’ll experience **hand tremors** or shakiness, especially noticeable when aiming down sights. Your gun or hands will twitch, making it much harder to shoot accurately. Unlike other illnesses, Kuru does not cause vomiting, fever, or direct stat loss. It’s purely characterized by the psychological effects (laughing) and physical tremors. If your character starts giggling like a psychopath and you’ve eaten human parts recently, you have Kuru.
• Treatment: Unfortunately, **there is no cure for Kuru** in DayZ. Once you have contracted Brain Prion Disease, it is permanent for the life of that character. No medicine, multivitamin, or treatment will remove the prion infection from your brain. The condition will persist until your character dies. Because of this, many players consider Kuru a death sentence of a different kind – not an immediate lethal sickness, but a permanent affliction that can ruin your experience. The only “solution” (if you no longer want to deal with the laughter and shakes) is to start fresh: essentially, you would have to kill your character (or let them be killed) and respawn without the disease. In gameplay, some afflicted survivors choose to live with it, accepting the constant laughter as a quirk, but it undeniably puts you at a disadvantage. In summary, once you notice the signs of Kuru, know that you’ll be carrying it to the grave. The best you can do is manage the symptoms (for example, some people avoid aiming down sights to not see the shaking, or try to mask the sound with other noises), but there is no real treatment to cure it.
• Prevention: The only prevention for Kuru is simple: **do not eat human meat**. No matter how desperate you are for food, cannibalism is not worth the price. Even a single bite can trigger the disease. If you’re starving, focus on hunting animals, gathering plants, or scavenging rather than turning to human flesh. Also, be careful with unknown food sources – if you find random human fat or suspicious meat in a camp or on a fireplace, avoid it (some players might trick others into consuming human meat unknowingly). When you kill a player, resist the morbid temptation to take their flesh as food. By completely abstaining from cannibalism, you will never get Kuru. It’s that straightforward. As a DayZ survivor, it’s better to roam hungry or trade for food than to pay the ultimate psychological price of eating another human.
• Risks if untreated: Since Kuru has no cure, “untreated” is the only state – the disease will stay with you. While Kuru doesn’t directly kill your character through health loss or organ damage, it poses serious long-term risks to your survival prospects. The loud laughter will continually risk drawing infected or hostile players to your location, essentially acting like an alarm betraying your presence. The tremors will make combat harder, as your aim will never be steady; in a firefight, this could mean the difference between life and death. Over time, the constant involuntary noises and shakes can psychologically wear on the player (and definitely on the character, in a role-play sense). In essence, a survivor with Kuru is at a perpetual disadvantage and is likely to die sooner or later because of those disadvantages. Many players with Kuru end up making a grim decision to **respawn** (i.e., let their character die) on their own terms rather than continue handicapped. Therefore, while Kuru might not kill you immediately, it effectively dooms your character’s journey. The only true escape is death and a fresh start.

General Prevention Strategies

We’ve discussed specific prevention methods under each illness, but it’s worth summarizing the best practices to **stay healthy in DayZ**:

• Water and Food Safety: Always boil or purify your water from natural sources. Use chlorine tablets or cook water in a pot to kill bacteria. Cook all meats thoroughly and avoid eating anything raw or rotten. When in doubt, throw it out (or better, don’t pick it up in the first place). Carry a bottle of charcoal tablets in case you accidentally ingest something bad.
• Hygiene: Keep yourself and your gear clean. If you get blood on your hands, wash them before eating or drinking. Disinfect your bandages, rags, and medical tools like sewing kits. If you find medical supplies in the field, assume they might not be sterile – disinfect them if possible. Using pristine, sterile bandages and tools will save you from wound infections.
• Stay Warm and Dry: Exposure can lead to colds and flu, which then can become pneumonia. Dress appropriately for the weather (raincoats, warm clothing), and pack extra dry clothes if you expect to get wet. Build fires or seek shelter when you notice your temperature dropping. A little preparation goes a long way in preventing illness due to cold environments.
• Immune System Boosting: Keep your core stats (food, water, blood, health) in good shape. A healthy survivor is much less likely to get sick. If you find multivitamins, take one periodically, especially before eating or drinking something of borderline safety – the vitamins give a temporary immunity boost that might prevent an illness. However, don’t rely on vitamins alone; use them as a supplement to good habits.
• Avoid Contagion: If you or a friend are sick, isolate the sickness. Don’t share food, drinks, or medical supplies between sick and healthy characters unless absolutely necessary. If you’re the one sick, consider wearing a surgical mask (it can slightly reduce spread of droplets) and keep your distance from your team to avoid infecting them. In turn, if a stranger is coughing or vomiting, you might want to steer clear or at least wear a mask and be cautious.
• Know Your Medicines: Each illness has a preferred treatment item – familiarize yourself with them. Tetracycline antibiotics are your cure for most bacterial infections (cholera, wound infection, and even cold/flu in game mechanics). Charcoal tablets are your remedy for poisoning (food or chemical). Multivitamins help in all cases as a support. Keep a stock of these meds in your first aid kit, because when sickness strikes, you might not have time to go looking.

Conclusion: Surviving Sickness in DayZ

Illness and infection can be as deadly as any bandit or zombie in DayZ. A well-timed sickness can knock you off your feet and leave you vulnerable, or slowly grind your character down if you don’t address it. But with the knowledge from this guide, you have the tools to identify and cure any illness that comes your way. Remember to stay vigilant about what you eat and drink, mind your hygiene and body temperature, and carry essential meds when possible. Prevention is always easier than cure, so develop good survival habits to avoid getting sick in the first place.

By focusing on cleanliness, proper preparation, and swift treatment, you can keep your survivor in peak health. When sickness does happen, don’t panic – evaluate the symptoms, recall what might have caused it, and apply the correct treatment. In this “how to cure illness in DayZ” guide, we covered everything from cholera to Kuru, so refer back to the sections above if you’re unsure what you’re dealing with. May this infection treatment in DayZ keep you alive through many harsh encounters. Stay healthy, survivor, and good luck out there!