Is mumps contagious? This is a common question that patients worry about and ask their doctors. To answer this question, it is useful to know what is mumps? Mumps is generally divided into five categories. Acute purulent parotitis Pathogenic bacterial infection and reduced saliva flow are the main causes of acute purulent parotitis. The pathogenic bacteria of acute suppurative mumps are mainly Staphylococcus aureus, followed by Streptococcus. 2. Chronic recurrent mumps The etiology is related to congenital developmental abnormalities, low immune function, and retrograde bacterial infection. It can occur in both children and adults. Chronic obstructive parotitis is caused by local causes, such as injury to the parotid ducts and branches, narrowing of the ducts after scar healing, and obstruction of the ducts by stones or foreign bodies. Mumps is an acute respiratory infection caused by mumps virus (also known as herpes simplex virus, coxsackie virus, influenza A virus, etc.) invading the parotid gland. It usually occurs in children and adolescents, but is less common in adults and is often prevalent in the spring. 5, parotid-specific infections Common specific infections include tuberculosis, actinomycosis, etc. Therefore, the only truly contagious infection is mumps, which is caused by the mumps virus, and other types of mumps are not contagious. In view of the many classifications of mumps, if you are unfortunate enough to have mumps, you need to go to the hospital in time to find the cause of the disease in order to treat it properly.