Diseases

In DayZ you get sick from what you drink, eat and breathe, from wounds and from the cold. Most diseases start small and get worse if you ignore them, a few can kill you, and almost every one has a clear cure once you know what you have.

Symptom check

Your character never tells you the name of a disease. You recognise it by what your character does and how the screen looks. The sick icon in your status bar only says "something is wrong" — and not every disease even shows it.

Shivering and chattering teeth are not a disease — you are cold. Warm up before you catch a cold (see Temperature and clothing).

A Medical Thermometer helps you tell diseases apart: with cholera, influenza or a severe wound infection it reads 38.5 to 39 °C, otherwise 36 to 36.5 °C — even with heat stroke.

Common cold

How you get it: by being cold. Once your temperature indicator is blue, a cold catches you after about 15 minutes, after about 6 minutes in dark blue and after about 4 minutes when it flashes. A sneezing or coughing player within a few metres passes on a germ now and then, but it only grows into a cold while you are cold yourself with a weak immune system; a face mask on either of you lowers the chance.

What you notice: you sneeze now and then. That is all — the cold does not show the sick icon.

What helps:

• Get warm and eat and drink well. With a strong immune system (see prevention) a cold is gone in about six minutes.
• Tetracycline Pills Multivitamin Pills both speed it up a lot.
• Codeine Pills or morphine make you sneeze about half as often — handy when you need to stay quiet, but they cure nothing.

After a cold you are protected against a new one for about a quarter of an hour.

How to avoid it: stay dry and warm. If you keep freezing with a weak immune system, a cold turns into influenza.

Everything about the common cold ›

Influenza and pneumonia

Influenza and pneumonia are the same infection as the cold, only further along. It grows while you are cold and your immune system is weak, and shrinks once you are warm.

Flu

You keep sneezing and start coughing. With the first cough the sick icon appears and you get a fever: every 15 seconds or so your character acts hot and wipes off sweat, your vision blurs for a moment every half minute, and you get thirsty faster. Staying cold, the cold becomes flu within roughly 10 to 20 minutes.

Pneumonia

If you keep freezing, the flu turns into pneumonia after roughly another 15 to 20 minutes. On top of the flu symptoms you gasp for air, your stamina runs out fast and refills slowly, and you lose health steadily — enough to kill you within roughly 20 to 30 minutes. Pneumonia does not get better on its own, not even when you are warm again.

What helps:

Tetracycline PillsTetracyclineAntibioticsMultivitamin PillsVitaminBottle

• Get warm first; in the cold the infection keeps growing.
• Take tetracycline. One pill works for 5 minutes and fights the flu hard. For pneumonia take a second pill when the first one has run out (the pills icon in your status bar disappears).
• Multivitamins help against the flu, but not against pneumonia.
• Painkillers make you cough about half as often, nothing more.

How to avoid it: don't stay in the blue. Dry clothes, a fire and a warm meal keep the cold from getting this far.

Everything about influenza ›

Cholera

How you get it: from untreated water. Every sip from a lake, pond or river carries cholera — only wells and water pumps are clean. A bottle filled at a lake can carry it too, and so can about half of the water bottles and canteens you find (about one in five on Sakhal). Sharing a drink with someone who has cholera can pass it on.

What you notice, usually within 20 to 30 minutes:

• You vomit, and keep vomiting whenever there is food or water in your stomach. Every bout costs you a big chunk of food and water.
• You get very thirsty, even without vomiting.
• Fever: your character acts hot, your vision blurs briefly, the thermometer shows 38.5 °C or more, the sick icon is on.

Cholera gets worse the longer it runs. It kills through thirst and hunger.

What helps:

Tetracycline PillsTetracyclineAntibioticsMultivitamin PillsVitaminBottle

• Take tetracycline and keep taking a pill whenever the previous one has run out, until the vomiting stops. A strong infection can need three or four pills.
• Multivitamins let your immune system kill cholera by itself while they work.
• Drink clean water between bouts.

How to avoid it: boil water in a Cooking Pot or put Chlorine Tablets in it before you drink, and treat found bottles the same way.

Everything about cholera ›

Salmonella

How you get it: from raw or rotten meat, and from eating or drinking with bloody hands. Raw meat carries salmonella until it is cooked — baked, boiled or dried. Bear and wolf meat is the exception: it keeps salmonella more than half the time even when cooked. Bloody hands come from gutting animals; eating or drinking with them and without gloves gives you salmonella about 40 % of the time and food poisoning otherwise.

What you notice, within a few minutes:

• Vomiting, mostly when your stomach is full. Each bout also throws out part of the infection.
• Pain groans with a short red flash every 15 seconds or so — stomach cramps.
• The sick icon. No fever.

What helps:

Charcoal TabletsCharcoalTabletsMultivitamin PillsVitaminBottle

• Multivitamins let your immune system kill salmonella: one bottle clears even a full infection in about five minutes.
• Charcoal tablets only work in the last 100 seconds of their five minutes. One takes away a good part of the infection but rarely all of it, and a second one only works once the first has run out — combine them with multivitamins.
• Tetracycline does nothing against salmonella.

How to avoid it: cook all meat, be careful with bear and wolf, and wash your hands (with water or a disinfectant) or wear gloves after gutting animals.

Everything about salmonella ›

Food poisoning

How you get it: from rotten or burnt food, raw fish and shrimp, opened cans that have stood around too long, eating or drinking with bloody hands, and hot-spring water.

What you notice: you vomit about every one to two minutes, with no fever and no pain. The sick icon shows up with the first bout.

What helps:

Charcoal TabletsCharcoalTablets

Food poisoning wears off by itself: every bout throws out most of the poison, and once little is left it fades within a couple of minutes — as long as your immune system is above about a third; with a weaker one a small rest stays, without symptoms, until you have eaten, drunk and healed. Don't eat more of what made you sick — as long as it is in your stomach, the poisoning keeps growing. Charcoal tablets make it fade faster.

How to avoid it: look at the food state before you eat — rotten and burnt food make you sick — cook fish, and clean your hands after gutting animals.

Everything about food poisoning ›

Overeating

Not a disease, but it looks like one: if you eat or drink far more than your stomach holds, you throw up straight away. The stuffed icon in your status bar warns you before that. Nothing to cure — just eat a little less next time. More in Food and water.

Everything about overeating ›

Wound infection

How you get it: when a bleeding wound closes. A wound that stops bleeding on its own gets infected 40 % of the time. Closed with an unclean item it is 5 % for a bandage, 15 % for a rag and 30 % for a sewing kit; a clean item never infects the wound. Bandages are clean when you find them, rags and sewing kits are not.

Infected wound

You groan in pain every 20 seconds or so, your stamina runs out faster and refills slowly, and the sick icon appears. No fever yet. Untreated, it turns severe after about 20 minutes.

Severe infection

Screams of heavy pain with a red flash every 6 to 12 seconds, shaking hands that ruin your aim, fever (acting hot, blurry spells, high thermometer reading) and steady health loss — your health stops regenerating.

What helps:

Iodine TinctureIodineTinctureAlcoholic TinctureDisinfectantAlcoholDisinfectant SprayDisinfectantSprayTetracycline PillsTetracyclineAntibiotics

• Infected wound: disinfect yourself with iodine, the alcoholic tincture or the disinfectant spray. Wait about a minute and a half and the infection is gone completely.
• Severe infection: disinfecting only holds it back. Take tetracycline: while it works the infection stops growing, the heavy pain turns to light pain and you stop losing health. Take another pill when the first one runs out, until the pain stops.

How to avoid it: disinfect your rags and sewing kit before you need them (combine the disinfectant with the item), and disinfect a fresh wound yourself right after you treat it. An item that gets damaged becomes unclean again.

Everything about wound infection ›

Brain disease

Also called kuru. How you get it: by eating human flesh — the steaks and guts you cut from a human body. Cooking does not help.

What you notice, about half an hour after the meal: you laugh out loud for no reason, more often the further it goes, and your view jerks around now and then, which makes aiming hard. The sick icon is on. Your laughing can give you away.

What helps: nothing. No pill cures it, and it never goes away by itself. It does not hurt you directly — you live with it until your character dies.

How to avoid it: don't eat people.

Everything about brain disease ›

Chemical poisoning

How you get it: by breathing toxic gas without a working gas mask — in permanent toxic zones, in gas clouds that appear after an artillery strike marked by a flare, and in the cloud of a gas grenade (it lasts about 6 minutes). Body parts without protective clothing get chemical burns that bleed, and every one of them lets in more poison.

Light exposure

You cough every few seconds while you are in the gas. Leave quickly: without a mask you reach the next stage after about 20 seconds. Light exposure fades by itself within about a quarter of an hour.

Poisoned

You keep coughing every 20 to 40 seconds and vomit every few minutes — both now bring up blood. Every cough and every bout of vomiting costs blood, and your hands get bloody. The sick icon is on. This stage does not go away by itself; it bleeds you out over time.

Critical

Without a mask you reach this after about 80 seconds in the gas. You vomit, then pass out within seconds, and while unconscious you lose health so fast that you die within about 40 seconds.

What helps:

PO-X AntidoteAntiChemInjector

• PO-X antidote: it cures the poisoned stage completely and wakes you up. In the critical stage one injection brings you back to the poisoned stage, so you need a second one.
• A transfusion of clean blood also flushes poison out.
• Medicine against other diseases does nothing here.

How to avoid it: wear a gas mask with a filter and the full NBC suit before you go in, and leave when your mask's filter runs low.

Combat Gas MaskGasMaskGas MaskGP5GasMaskGas Mask FilterGasMask_FilterNBC HoodNBCHoodGrayNBC JacketNBCJacketGrayNBC PantsNBCPantsGrayNBC GlovesNBCGlovesGrayNBC BootsNBCBootsGray

Everything about chemical poisoning ›

Heavy metal poisoning

How you get it: on Sakhal, natural water and snow are polluted with heavy metals — drinking from lakes and rivers, eating snow or filling a bottle there. Water from hot springs carries them too. Boiling and chlorine tablets do not remove them.

Early

Hardly any signs — you get thirsty much faster than usual, and your hands shake now and then.

Middle

Pain groans now and then, your hearing cuts out for a few seconds, you stay very thirsty, and the sick icon appears.

Severe

Your hearing stays muffled, pulsing ghost images cross your vision about every half minute, you vomit every few minutes and you lose health slowly. This stage never ends on its own.

What helps:

Chelating TabletsChelatingTabletsMultivitamin PillsVitaminBottle

• Chelating tablets. Each one works for 5 minutes and clears a good part of the poison; take another when it runs out, until the symptoms are gone.
• Early and middle stage fade by themselves once you stop drinking polluted water — within minutes with a strong immune system, otherwise in about 20 minutes per stage; multivitamins speed it up.

How to avoid it: on Sakhal drink from wells and pumps, or put chelating tablets into the water before you drink it — that cleans it of everything.

Everything about heavy metal poisoning ›

Hemolytic reaction

How you get it: from a blood transfusion with the wrong blood type. More than 75 ml of wrong blood knocks you out, more than 175 ml triggers the reaction — and wrong blood adds nothing to your own.

What you notice: you pass out when the transfusion ends. Afterwards you lose blood for almost three minutes — more than a fifth of your total blood — and the sick icon is on.

What helps:

IV Saline BagSalineBagIV

The reaction ends by itself after those three minutes. A saline drip makes up for part of the loss; then let your blood regenerate (see Health and status).

How to avoid it: test your blood type and the donor's with a Blood Test Kit first. O negative blood is safe for everyone, and anyone can safely receive their own type.

Everything about the hemolytic reaction ›

Heat stroke

How you get it: by overheating for a long time — hot weather and direct sun (especially on Nasdara), heavy clothing, running. It is not an infection, so no pill helps. Heat builds up in your body in the background:

• When your temperature indicator is red, it always builds up, faster when the indicator flashes. Even well hydrated, the first symptoms come after about 20 minutes in the red, or about 13 minutes when it flashes.
• When it is yellow, it only builds up if you are short of water. With your water well up (above about 70 %) nothing builds up; half full, it stops just short of the first symptoms; nearly empty, it keeps rising.
• It only goes down once your indicator is out of the yellow and the red, and then slowly: from the worst stage it takes well over an hour until the symptoms are gone.

At first nothing shows. Then:

Overheated

Every minute or two your character acts hot and wipes off sweat, your vision blurs every half minute, your stamina runs out faster and refills slowly, and the sick icon appears. The thermometer still reads normal.

Heat exhaustion

On top of that you vomit every 8 to 15 minutes. Each bout costs food and water and leaves you out of breath for a while.

Collapse

Your vision darkens in waves, you pass out for 5 to 10 seconds every one to two minutes, and you lose health — slowly at first, then faster the hotter you get, until it can kill you within about five minutes.

What helps:

• Get out of the heat: shade, a building, lighter clothes, until your indicator leaves the red and the yellow. In the collapse stage get into the shade first — every blackout in the sun lets the heat climb further.
• Wash your face — at a well or pump, at a pond, lake, river or the sea, or with a bottle of water. One wash cools you about as much as half an hour in the shade, and it wets your head and clothes. For the next 30 seconds your heat stays frozen: it does not rise, but washing again does nothing either. Wait the 30 seconds and wash again; about five washes bring you back from the worst stage. With a bottle a short splash is enough — washing on only uses up water until the 30 seconds are over.
• Soak clothes: take a piece of clothing in your hands and wet it at a well or at the water's edge. Soaking a dry piece through cools you about as much as one face wash, and you can do it between washes — only not in the 30 seconds after one. Then put it back on: wet clothes keep you cooler. Pouring water from a bottle over clothes on the ground only makes them wet.
• Drink. Water stops the build-up while you are in the yellow, but drinking alone does not cool you down.

CanteenCanteenPlastic BottleWaterBottle

How to avoid it: wear light clothes in the heat, stay in the shade at midday, keep your water up, and wash your face before the symptoms start. Dry your clothes before it gets cold again (see Temperature and clothing).

Everything about heat stroke ›

Sandstorms on Nasdara

Sandstorms on Nasdara bring two separate problems: dust in your lungs (silicosis) and sand in your eyes (irritated eyes). How often storms come is a server setting; vanilla has them. The stronger the storm where you stand, the faster both build up.

You are safe from the storm:

• Inside a building — with a roof over you and actually indoors. Porches, carports and ruins without walls may not count, and neither do trees or a helicopter wreck.
• Underground, in bunkers and tunnels.
• Sitting in a car. A motorbike or a boat does not protect you.

Silicosis

Also called dust lung. How you get it: by breathing dust while you are out in a sandstorm without a dust mask. It is not an infection, and no medicine helps.

Dust in the lungs

While you are in the storm you cough — less with a mask, not at all with a full one. After a minute or two in a strong storm you start breathing heavily now and then, more often the more dust you have.

Short of breath

After about four minutes in a strong storm without protection your stamina runs out fast and refills slowly. Stay in the storm and you start losing health.

Choking on dust

About a minute later your vision darkens in waves and you pass out for 5 to 10 seconds every one to two minutes. As long as you keep breathing dust you lose health fast, enough to kill you within a few minutes. With a weak immune system all of this comes sooner.

What helps:

• Get into shelter. You stop losing health as soon as no more dust comes in.
• Then wait. Your lungs clear by themselves — from the worst stage in about 15 to 20 minutes. Your stamina comes back after a few minutes, the heavy breathing lasts longest.
• That only works while your immune system is not weak (above about a third — eat, drink and heal, see prevention). With a weak immune system the dust stays. While you are unconscious nothing clears.
• Multivitamin Pills get the healing going for 5 minutes when your immune system is weak; with a decent immune system they don't make it any faster.
• No pill or injection helps.

How to avoid it: put on a mask before the storm reaches you, or wait it out in shelter.

• Full protection: a dust mask, the combat gas mask, a gas mask or NBC respirator with a filter, a welding mask or a closed motorbike helmet.
• About two thirds: a shemagh or keffiyeh worn over the face, or an enduro helmet with its mouthguard.
• About half: a ski mask and similar full face masks. A surgical mask or an open motorbike helmet stop only about a quarter.

Partial protection only buys time — a shemagh a lot of it, a ski mask not much.

Dust MaskNioshFaceMaskCombat Gas MaskGasMaskGas MaskGP5GasMaskGas Mask FilterGasMask_FilterShemaghShemag_Brown

Everything about silicosis ›

Irritated eyes

How you get it: sand in your eyes during a sandstorm without eye protection. It is separate from silicosis — a dust mask does nothing for your eyes, and goggles do nothing for your lungs.

What you notice: while you are in the storm you squint, and the view closes in at the edges. After about half a minute in a strong storm red veins creep in from the edges of your vision, thicker the more sand you have, and they stay after the storm. Irritated eyes don't cost you health and don't show the sick icon — you just see worse.

What helps:

• Wash your face at a well or pump, a pond, lake, river or the sea. Every wash takes away half of the worst possible irritation, so two washes clear even the worst case.
• Washing with a bottle works too, but slowly: a whole litre of water takes away only about a third.
• Or wait: out of the storm it fades by itself within about five minutes, as long as your immune system is not weak.

How to avoid it: wear goggles in the storm.

• Full protection: ski goggles, tactical goggles, any gas mask, a welding mask, a closed motorbike helmet, or the assault helmet with its visor down. The dust goggles found on Nasdara are made for exactly this.
• Sunglasses help partly: athletic sunglasses keep out about two thirds, ordinary glasses and sunglasses less than half.

Ski GogglesSkiGoggles_BlackYellowTactical GogglesTacticalGogglesAthletic SunglassesSportGlasses_Black

Everything about irritated eyes ›

Prevention

Your immune system decides whether most infections grow or die. Its strength is simply the average of how full four things are: food, water, health and blood.

• Above about three quarters, a cold or the flu can't grow, and your body fights them off even when you are cold. Early heavy metal poisoning fades much faster then.
• Only above about 95 % — everything nearly full — does your body kill cholera and salmonella by itself.
• Multivitamin Pills put your immune system at the top for 5 minutes, whatever your stats are.
• Wound infection, brain disease and pneumonia grow no matter how strong you are, and so does food poisoning while the bad food is still in your stomach. Only the right treatment helps there.
• Silicosis and irritated eyes clear by themselves only while your immune system is above about a third.

The habits that keep you healthy:

• Drink from wells and pumps; boil or chlorinate everything else. On Sakhal use chelating tablets for natural water.
• Cook all meat and fish, never eat rotten or burnt food or people, and clean your hands after gutting animals.
• Disinfect rags and sewing kits before you use them.
• Stay warm and dry, and don't overheat.
• Wear a gas mask in gas, a mask and goggles in sandstorms (or wait the storm out indoors), and keep your distance from sneezing and coughing players.

Your diseases stay with your character when you log out. A fresh character starts healthy.

More on keeping your stats up: Health and status and Food and water.