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Causes
By Mayo Clinic staffYou get warts through direct contact with the human papillomavirus (HPV).
There are 100 or more types of HPV. Several types of HPV have been implicated in the cause of cancer of the cervix. Many more types tend to cause warts on your skin. Common warts usually occur on your hands, fingers or near your fingernails. Other types of HPV tend to cause warts in other places, such as on the soles of the feet, the genitals, or the face and legs.
How warts spread
Like other infectious diseases, wart viruses pass from person to person. You can also get the wart virus by touching a towel or object used by someone who has the virus. Each person's immune system responds to warts differently, meaning not everyone who comes in contact with HPV develops warts. Some types of warts — such as genital warts — are quite contagious, but the chance of catching common warts from another person is small.
If you have warts, you can spread the virus to other places on your own body. Warts usually spread through breaks in your skin, such as a hangnail or scrape. Biting your nails also can cause warts to spread on your fingertips and around your nails.
