Quick answer
What to do first
Queasy is a symptom, not a Knox-infection test. Check recent zombie wounds, unsafe food or water, and time spent near corpses. A wound marked Infected is not the same diagnosis as Knox infection. Under ordinary vanilla transmission rules, a zombie bite is fatal; bandages or antibiotics do not cure Knox. Changed Sandbox rules and mods can change that conclusion.
Check your game conditions
- Current Stable
- 42.20.4 Stable
- Play mode
- Singleplayer / Multiplayer
- Vanilla / Mods
- Vanilla baseline; mods may replace rules
- Sandbox / server settings
- Transmission and infection mortality settings change Knox outcomes; corpse and food sickness are separate.
What happened before you became sick?
A zombie bite or other zombie wound
- Possible cause
- Possible Knox infection under the world's transmission rules
- Check
- Read the wound and confirm the server's transmission settings
- Next action
- Treat bleeding, but do not mistake wound healing for a Knox cure.
The wound panel says Infected
- Possible cause
- Local wound infection
- Check
- Distinguish the wound label from overall sickness progression
- Next action
- Care for the wound; that label alone does not prove zombification.
You ate unsafe food or drank tainted water
- Possible cause
- Food or water sickness
- Check
- Review what you consumed, including unknown forage
- Next action
- Stop taking the suspected source; use safe supplies and monitor your condition.
You spent a long time near bodies
- Possible cause
- Corpse sickness
- Check
- Move away from the corpse area and check other exposures
- Next action
- Recover in a cleaner location; avoid more exposure.
No cause is clear
- Possible cause
- More than one condition may be involved
- Check
- Review exposures, settings and active health mods
- Next action
- Do not assume that either feeling better or one symptom proves the cause.
Use exposure history before chasing a cure
A zombie wound and unsafe food can happen during the same supply run. Write down which happened first rather than treating every subsequent symptom as confirmation of one cause. Cover bleeding wounds promptly while you work out why overall health is falling.
The in-game wound panel does not provide a general-purpose Knox test. Disinfecting a wound and caring for the character address different problems from the zombie infection itself. A mod that adds cures must be evaluated using that mod's own current rules.
Remove avoidable exposure
Move your recovery space away from corpse piles and stop consuming suspect items. Use food and water whose state you can identify; do not try a second unknown berry or tainted drink to see whether the first was the cause.
If your group uses custom transmission or mortality rules, ask the host which rules this world actually has. Advice for a no-transmission server is not evidence that a default bite can be survived. Conversely, a default-rule guide should not override an explicitly different server.
Version notes & limits
Check the world's Transmission and Infection Mortality settings before applying default infection outcomes. Older health references remain useful for the distinction between causes, not as evidence that every current preset uses identical rules.
Project Zomboid game mechanics only, not real medical advice. No guaranteed cure, precise countdown or diagnosis from a single moodle.
Last verified means the linked documentation was reviewed, not that this guide was tested in-game. PZwiki is maintained by community contributors.
Version & sources
Sources & what may change
- Applies to
- 42.20.4 Stable; Singleplayer / Multiplayer; Vanilla baseline; mods may replace rules
- Last verified
- 2026-09-04
- When to check again
- A relevant Stable patch, changed world setting, mod update or correction to the cited instructions.