The Sims 2/Diseases

Diseases are a potentially fatal element of The Sims 2. This page explains how to get them and how to avoid them.

Disease Mechanics
Each disease has a few basic mechanics. The first part is origin. Each disease has an origin as to how to get it. Knowing what the origin of each disease is can help you avoid it. The next part of diseases is the symptoms. Symptoms of various diseases can include vomiting, coughing, nausea and diarrhea. Some diseases are contagious. To avoid other sims' diseases, you might want to quarantine them somehow. An uncured disease will eventually lead to death. If a sim has been sick for ten days, then they will die. To cure disease, all you need is bed rest. Keep them in bed for an amount of time and the disease will be gone before you know it. You can also make medicine with the science career reward object. The strength of medicine depends on the logic of the sim that made it.

List of Diseases
What follows is a list of diseases and their specifics.

Cold
Colds are obtained from going to work. The chances of getting a cold from work or school, however, are very slim. To get a cold, you'll have to play the career game a lot. You can tell a sim has a cold when their comfort suddenly drops and they break out with coughing and sneezing. If the cold isn't cured, it turns into pneumonia.

Flu
The flu is caused by roaches. To avoid, make sure you pick up garbage, the source of roaches. Flu symptoms include coughing and diarrhoea which correspond to sudden drops in comfort and bladder respectively. The flu is also contagious and fatal.

Food Poisoning
Food poisoning is caused by eating food that has attracted flies. This means that neat sims should never autonomously get it. For sloppy sims, make sure you watch their actions when it comes to hunger. Food poisoning causes sims to vomit, dirtying the toilet, and makes sims nauseous, making the sim's comfort drop. Again, this disease needs rest to cure and is fatal. Sloppy sims will also eat out of the trash can when hungry, which also causes food poisoning.

Morning Sickness
Morning sickness is a disease that happens on the first day of a sim's pregnancy. That day will be marked with vomiting and drops in comfort. The only cure is to wait it out. Morning sickness isn't fatal or contagious. Only the pregnant sim gets it.

Pneumonia
Pneumonia is, essentially, a worsening of an untreated cold. Marked by drops in comfort and energy, the disease is contagious. The good thing is, because this disease makes sims lose energy, most of the time you spend will probably be sleeping, effectively curing the disease. Pneumonia is fatal.

Virus
Viruses are obtained by playing with the science career reward. Sims with low logic and other low needs may make a virus instead of medicine. Unlike other diseases, virus symptoms are random. Viruses can be cured in the normal way and like other diseases are fatal. Viruses are also highly contagious so quarantine your sims if you don't want them to get it.