Learn English – “be infected by” and “become infected”

grammarsentence-meaningverbsword-meaning

I want know the difference (particularly on meaning) between be infected by and become infected.

Here is my question sentences.

  1. Children can become infected through daily contact with their pets.

  2. Children can be infected by daily contact with their pets.

I think meaning of both sentences are same.
Is there any difference?
and if there is any difference, I want to know it.

Best Answer

The process of acquiring infection can be described as:

  1. Become infected (This exact Google search site:gov "become infected" gives 35,600 results and site:edu "become infected" 59,100 results.)

  2. Get infected (This search site:gov "get infected" gives 13,600 results and site:edu "get infected" 12,500 results.)

"Be infected" is NOT used for acquiring but for having an infection.

I used "gov" and "edu" seraches because most results are from the largest online medical library pubmed.gov and university websites, which shows the actual usage of the terms in the medical world.

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