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Diseases, disorders, infections, and pathogens have appeared in fiction as part of a major plot or thematic importance. They may be fictional psychological disorders, magical, from mythological or fantasy settings, have evolved naturally, been genetically modified (most often created as biological weapons), or be any illness that came forth from the (ab)use of technology.
Multiple media
[edit]| Name | Source | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Cooties | Various | A term used by children in the United States, with varied meaning. Cooties generally refers to an invisible germ, bug, or microscopic monster, transferred by skin to skin contact, usually with a member of the opposite sex.[1] |
| Lycanthropy | Various | In many modern fictional works, werewolves can transmit their condition as an infectious disease by biting victims, turning them into werewolves themselves. |
| Vampirism | Various | In many modern fictional works, vampires can transmit their condition as an infectious disease by biting victims, turning them into vampires themselves. |
| Zombification | Various | In many modern fictional works, zombies can transmit their condition as an infectious disease by biting victims, turning them into zombies themselves. |
In comics and literature
[edit]| Name | Source | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| ALAS – acquired lavish altruism syndrome | The Giving Plague by David Brin | A bloodborne viral disease that induces a subtle urge in those infected to donate blood, and by psychological association with this act causing a general increase in altruistic behavior. |
| AMPS – acquired metastructural pediculosis | Pontypool Changes Everything by Tony Burgess | A "metaphysical, deconstructionist" virus spread by the English language. Symptoms begin with palilalia as they repeat certain words (usually terms of endearment), proceeding to full aphasia and finally cannibalistic rage as the affected individual grows insane from an inability to express themselves clearly. |
| Andromeda | The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton | A rapidly mutating alien pathogen that (in its most virulent form) causes near-instantaneous blood clotting. |
| ARIA – alien retrograde infectious amnesia | The Aria Trilogy by Geoff Nelder | A plague accidentally contracted from an "alien suitcase". Symptoms appear to be non-specific fever-like symptoms and retrograde amnesia. |
| Atlantis complex | Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex by Eoin Colfer | A psychosis common in guilt ridden fairies, but is contracted by Artemis by his dabbling in fairy magic. The symptoms include obsessive compulsive behavior, paranoia, multiple personality disorder, and in his case professing his love to Holly Short. |
| Bazi plague | Gor series by John Norman | Bazi plague is a deadly, rapidly spreading disease with no known cure. Its symptoms include pustules that appear all over the body, and a yellowing of the whites of the eyes. |
| Black trump virus | Wild Cards by George R. R. Martin | The black trump virus is a variant of xenovirus takis-B. Rather than a cure, this retrovirus was designed to kill aces, jokers, latents, and wild card carriers. Dr. Tachyon's original trump virus was designed to turn wild carders back into nats (a slang term for naturals), those who do not carry xenovirus takis-A in their system. |
| Bloodfire | Blood Nation | A virus that gestated in wolves two thousand years ago. The first to be infected was Genghis Khan. It causes the symptoms usually associated with vampirism, photosensitivity and invincibility. The entire nation of Russia is infected, except for a few feral children. The virus can cause extreme mutation, for example the snake's tail present in the Khan's head scientist. |
| Brainpox, cobra | The Cobra Event | A genetically engineered recombinant virus made from the nuclear polyhedrosis virus, the rhinovirus, and smallpox. It causes nightmares, fever, chills, runny nose, encephalitis (brain swelling), and herpes-like boils in the mouth and genitals, followed by a short period of aggression and autocannibalism preceding death. Used as a bioterror weapon. |
| Buscard's murrain, wormword | "Entry Taken from a Medical Encyclopaedia" by China Miéville | An echolalia-like disease in which a specific pronunciation of a certain word—the "wormword"—leads to fatally degenerative cognitive ability as a result of encephalopathy. Buscard's murrain is infectious, as the afflicted desire to hear others pronounce the wormword. |
| Superflu, tube neck, project blue, Captain Trips | The Stand, The Stand: Captain Trips by Stephen King | A deadly, flu-based virus. Created as a biological weapon codenamed Blue. Causes a lethally high fever and is highly contagious. It is deadly because as the body fights off the disease, it mutates into different strains of influenza, making immunity next to impossible. |
| Chivrel | Dray Prescot series by Kenneth Bulmer | Those affected experience premature extreme aging. |
| Clone-killing nanovirus | Star Wars Republic Commando: Hard Contact by Karen Traviss | A nanovirus developed by the Confederacy of Independent Systems designed specifically to kill the clones of Jango Fett. Its creator, Ovolot Qail Uthan, is captured by Republic commandos before her research is complete, however. In later books in the series, it is revealed (though not to any of the main characters, but to the reader through both Palpatine's and Dr. Uthan's private journals), Chancellor Palpatine secretly chooses not to completely destroy all evidence or research of the virus, but rather opts to hold onto it as a back-up plan, should the clone army ever be turned against him. |
| Collins' syndrome | The Legend of Deathwalker by David Gemmell | A mutating disease that often starts with pain and sensitivity in the affected person's nipples, then forms a temporary tumor in the brain as it feeds upon the genetic material of the brain cells, sapping away their critical thinking skills and intelligence, once it reaches its critical density, the tumor disbands into the bloodstream, the virus going into a form of hibernation, leaving its victim in a state of near absolute uselessness. Once the virus detects that it has entered a new host due to differences in protein markers of the victims cells, the process begins again. |
| Gray brittle death | The Colour Out of Space by H. P. Lovecraft | A disease caused by infection with an alien entity called "the colour" by characters in the story, the disease affects anything living, including plants, insects, livestock, wild animals, and humans. It causes various symptoms depending on species that ends with the victim crumbling into gray dust. |
| Coreopsis | "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by James Thurber | Used by surgeon Dr. Renshaw, presumably referring to some complication of the critical surgery in progress in the second of Mitty's fantasies in the 1939 story. "'Coreopsis has set in,' said Renshaw nervously. 'If you would take over, Mitty?'".[2] Coreopsis is actually the name of a genus of flowering plants native to North, Central, and South America. |
| Curse of the warmbloods | The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins | A disease created by Doctor Neveeve in the city of Regalia. She gave the disease to fleas, which instead of getting infected, spread the disease around warm-blooded creatures, including people. Symptoms include purple blemishes, coughing, choking, and a swollen tongue. The cure was originally believed to be a plant named starshade, though the true cure was made in Regalia. |
| Crossed virus | Crossed by Garth Ennis | A disease that transforms its victims into homicidal psychopaths who rape, kill and mutilate any living being in their sight or each other if there is nothing else to feast on. Individuals infected by the virus are marked by their distinctive red crosses. |
| Dar-kosis | Gor by John Norman | Dar-kosis is a virulent, horrible, wasting disease and is similar in many ways to leprosy. It is taught by the initiates (who claim to be the voice of the priest-kings of Gor) that dar-kosis is a holy disease. |
| Death stench | Gyo by Junji Ito | A virus designed by the Imperial Japanese Army during WW II, it was designed to be paired up with mechanical walking machines to carry infected hosts further towards enemies to be sickened. The death stench was let loose on Japan when the ship carrying the prototypes was destroyed by allied aircraft; the virus then began multiplying, synthesizing new walking machines by harvesting iron from shipwrecks until the present day, when large quantities of infected sea life began invading the Kanto region. The death stench disease causes its hosts – which can range from fish to humans and other large mammals – to visibly bloat, and begin producing large quantities of gas containing the virus; when attached to a walking machine, this gas powers the machine's legs, which will remain active until its victim decays away and is no longer able to produce enough gas to make the machine move. It appears that the virus is airborne, although it can also be contracted via being attached to a vacant walking machine; amputating a limb that has become attached to a smaller walking machine is the only way to escape, and even then the machine will still use the limb as a power source. |
| Demon pox | The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare | Demon pox, also known as astriola, is a rare but debilitating disease that affects Shadowhunters and is caused by sexual contact with demons. Mundanes are immune to the disease, as demon pox is assumed to be caused by the interaction of demon poison with the angelic nature of Shadowhunters. |
| Descolada | Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card | A quasi-conscious self-modifying organism capable of infecting any form of life. Descolada is also the Portuguese word for "unglued". In the context of the book, this refers to the descolada virus's effects: it breaks the link of the DNA double helix (ungluing it) and induces mutations. |
| Despotellis | Green Lantern Corps | A sentient virus and a member of the Sinestro Corps. It can create non-sentient duplicates of itself capable of killing infected victims within minutes. |
| Devotion | Zombiecorns by John Green | A disease caused by the genetically engineered corn strain d131y which turns the victim into a mindless zombie-like creatures called "Z"s. Called devotion because its victims only want to plant d131y and convert all humans to Zs to further the spread of the corn. |
| Diseasemaker's croup | Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman | A disorder "afflicting those who habitually and pathologically catalogue and construct diseases". It is characterized by increasingly nonsensical speech and writing patterns and an obsessive insistence on trying to repeat previous statements out of context. |
| Donkey fever | The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi | A disease caused by the Land of Toys when the children who visit there do not listen. |
| Dragon pox | The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling | Dragon pox is a potentially fatal contagious disease that occurs in wizards and witches. Its symptoms are presumably similar to Muggle illnesses like smallpox and chicken pox. However, in addition to leaving the victim's skin pockmarked, dragon pox causes a lasting greenish tinge. Simpler cases present with a green-and-purple rash between the toes and sparks coming out of the nostrils when the patient sneezes. Elderly patients are apparently more susceptible to dragon pox than younger ones. Gunhilda of Gorsemoor developed a cure for dragon pox, but the disease has not been completely eradicated, as is evidenced by the fact that it is still treated by the Magical Bugs ward at St. Mungo's Hospital. |
| Dryditch fever | Salamandastron by Brian Jacques | A deadly disease causing weakness, hot flashes, chills, and dizziness. The victim is usually bedridden until eventual death. The only known cure are flowers of Icetor boiled in spring water. |
| DX | The Lost World by Michael Crichton | An unknown prion dubbed "DX" by scientists on Isla Sorna. It is similar to mad cow disease and was the result of feeding ground-up sheep to carnivorous dinosaurs. DX increased the mortality rate of newborn dinosaurs and is eventually fatal to adult dinosaurs. In order to combat DX, InGen scientists released animals into the wild of Isla Sorna. The prion initially infected carnivorous dinosaurs such as velociraptors and procompsognathus, which would then spread the disease to herbivores such as apatosaurus, and the apatosaur carcasses would be eaten by compys, which would then spread the disease to other carcasses, and the cycle would repeat. Ian Malcolm said at the end of the novel that, because of the imbalance of carnivores and herbivores due to DX, the dinosaurs were doomed to die out. |
| Ebola gulf A | DC Comics | Also known as "the clench", due to the victims clenching their stomachs, Ebola gulf is an evolved form of the Ebola virus created by Ra's al Ghul. |
| Evil breath | The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien | An "evil wind out of Angband" that caused sickness in the lands around Anfauglith towards the end of the First Age.[3] |
| Fire-us (sounds like virus) | Fire-Us series | A viral infection that infects extremely fast and only infects those that produce sex hormones (i.e. those after puberty and women before menopause) or are taking medicine that includes similar hormones. It was released by the president of the United States of America to start the world over, killing almost all adults within two weeks. As a result, children were left to fend for themselves, most of whom failed. Once all the targets of the virus were gone, it died out. |
| The flare (virus VC321xb47) | The Maze Runner | A highly contagious virus that infects the brain of its host, turning them into crazed blood-thirsty cannibals (essentially zombies) who are called Cranks. Less than 1% of the population is immune to the virus, and are called Munies. There is no cure for the flare, but many wealthy people slow down the onslaught of the symptoms with an illegal drug called the bliss, which slows down their brain activity. It was released by the governments of the world to help control overpopulation after the sun flares, but it eventually killed most of the people in the world. |
| Foul-drought | The Heir of Mistmantle by M. I. McAllister | Disease caused from drinking poisoned water. Animals who have it will have pain, blurry sight and some will eventually die. |
| Georgia flu | Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel | A variant of the flu that kills nearly all humans on earth, with an incubation periods of only a few hours. |
| Goddag-goddagsjukan; "Good day, good day" disease | Sagan om Sune by Anders Jacobsson and Sören Olsson | A disease lasting for a few hours, where the affected person can only say "Good day, good day" despite attempts to say other words. Sune gets the disease[4][5] but is later cured by his schoolteacher Ulla-Lena Frid, who cures it with "ordinary simple curiosity" (Swedish: "vanlig enkel nyfikenhet"). |
| Gray death | The Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine | Disease created from the noxious gas from the defeated dragon Yune's stomach. It comes on with no warning and is not contagious. There are three stages of the disease. The first stage is the weakness, and it can last anywhere from a week to six months. The second stage is the sleeping, and it always lasts nine days. The last stage is fever, and it always lasts three days. At the end of the fever stage, the victim will die. The only cure is water sent down from the fairies' Mount Ziriat. The cure will only be discovered "when cowards find courage and rain falls over all Bamarre". |
| Great plague | The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien | A mysterious disease that swept through Middle-earth during the mid-1600s of the Third Age. The plague's origins are unknown except that it came out of the distant East. The plague was responsible for significant population declines throughout northwestern Middle-earth that persisted for centuries even after it had ended. |
| Grayscale | A Song of Ice and Fire | Grayscale is a typically nonfatal disease akin to leprosy. It is first introduced in Stannis Baratheon's daughter Shireen. When it infects children, grayscale generally leaves children malformed and disabled but alive. However, in A Dance with Dragons, it is revealed to be generally fatal to adults. The disease is contracted by touch and slowly turns the skin (small patches in children and the entire body in adults) of the victim to into a gray, stone-like form. It is said that the disease also drives its adult victims insane. |
| Hanahaki disease, or hanahaki byou | Hanahaki Otome (花吐き乙女) by Matsuda Naoko. Popularized by Japanese, Korean, and Chinese pop band, anime, and manga fandoms. | Hanahaki disease (花吐き病 (Japanese); 하나하키병 (Korean); 花吐病 (Chinese)) is a fictional disease where the victim of unrequited or one-sided love begins to vomit or cough up the petals and flowers of a flowering plant growing in their lungs, which will eventually grow large enough to render breathing impossible if left untreated. There is no set time for how long this disease lasts but it may last from 2 weeks to 3 months, in rare cases up to 18 months, until the victim dies unless the feelings are returned or the plants are surgically removed.[6] There is also no set flower that blossoms in the lungs but it may be the enamored's favorite flower or favorite color.[7] Hanahaki can be cured through surgical removal of the plants' roots, but this excision also has the effect of removing the patient's capacity for romantic love. It may also erase the patient's feelings for and memories of the enamored. It can also be cured by the reciprocation of the victim's feelings. These feelings cannot be feelings of friendship but must be feelings of genuine love. The victim may also develop hanahaki disease if they believe the love to be one-sided but once the enamored returns the feelings, they will be cured.[8] In some literature other symptoms can be fever, uncontrollable shaking, loss of appetite, low body temperature, and hallucinations. Even after curing, with or without surgery, there can be irreversible damage to the lungs and, although very rare, in some cases the disease cannot be cured. |
| Hawaiian cat flu | Garfield by Jim Davis | A rare disease only contracted by cats. Its symptoms include a "voracious" appetite, a craving for Hawaiian food, listlessness, crankiness, and a compulsion to wear Hawaiian shirts and hula dance. |
| Herod's flu (SHEVA) | Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear | A contagious, sexually transmitted human endogenous retrovirus (HERV) that causes flu-like symptoms and ultimately causes miscarriage of pregnancies. Though treated as a public health crisis by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and World Health Organization, the virus is later revealed to be a mechanism that causes rapid speciation and accelerates evolution. |
| Harlequin (not to be confused with harlequin ichthyosis, a severe genetic disorder)[9] | Harlequin Rex by Owen Marshall | A progressive and fatal neurological disease that causes a re-awakening of primordial senses and behaviors, set in near-future Earth.[10] |
| Hourman virus | DC One Million | Created by the living star Solaris, this plague was caused by nanomachines. It acted like both a biological virus and a computer virus, and could be spread to each type of victim by the other type. It was capable of wiping out humanity in twenty-four hours. |
| Idiopathic adolescent acute neurodegeneration (IAAN) | The Darkest Minds trilogy by Alexandra Bracken | Idiopathic adolescent acute neurodegeneration (IAAN), also known as Everhart's disease after its first victim, is a fatal disease affecting children between the ages 8 and 14. IAAN is known to not have any specific symptoms, with the only real symptom being death without warning. The 2% that survived IAAN were given powers. |
| I-pollen degenerative disorder | Transmetropolitan, DC Comics | The hero Spider Jerusalem has I-pollen degenerative disorder, a disease he gained as a result of coming into contact with information pollen, pollen used to transmit information. In 98% of the cases, the disease will cause the victim to lose all motor and cognitive skills. It is comparable to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. |
| Inferno virus | Inferno by Dan Brown | An airborne virus that incubated in water. It was released by the terrorist group the Consortium to kill off half of humanity and reproduce with only a third of ten individuals who were immune. The virus was modeled on the Black Death. Originally, its creator, Bertrand Zobrist, planned to have it as a waterborne virus, but changed it to airborne because it could infect faster. The inferno virus can infect a human through damp air, and then it renders humans infertile. The plan was for the infected to die off and the Earth's population to be significantly reduced. |
| Kellis-Amberlee | Feed by Mira Grant | A spontaneous combination of two man-made viruses that exists in a "reservoir condition" state without ill effects until the host's death, when any host over approximately 40 pounds undergoes virus amplification and becomes a zombie. |
| Konebogetvirus | The Next Big One by Derek Des Anges | A long-latency manmade virus which since its creation has mutated multiple times. The virus is modeled on lyssavirus, Ebola, rabies, and several other real-world viruses. A notable symptom is the alteration of an infected person's behavior to increase the likelihood of transmission to others, comparable to toxoplasmosis in mice. |
| Krytos virus | Star Wars expanded universe | The Krytos virus was a deadly and highly contagious virus that only attacked non-human species. It could spread via a number of avenues, including by water supplies and by air. The virus often painfully killed its host in less than two weeks. |
| Legacy virus | Marvel Multiverse | A disease that targets only mutants, causing genetic and biological degradation and eventual death; shortly before death, the virus' effects cause a violent, uncontrolled flare-up of the victim's superhuman abilities. |
| Letumosis | The Lunar Chronicles series by Marissa Meyer | Also known as the "blue fever", a worldwide pandemic that is compared to the plague. Multiple stages. Carriers are noted to show boils and patches on their skin. |
| Life-eater virus | Warhammer 40,000 novels | The life-eater virus is a form of necrotizing fasciitis that causes all biological matter to break down into its component parts, releasing toxic, flammable gas that can be ignited with a single explosion. The virus eats itself when there is nothing else to attack. It is quite effective against Tyrranids. In the short-story anthology Planetkill, an updated strain goes after the soul, turning the population into zombies, created by a techpriest inhabited by a daemonic Unclean One. |
| Love sickness | One Piece | A mostly psychosomatic disease that can only be contracted by the empress of the Kuja Tribe if she falls in love with a man and denies the feeling. It causes weakness, pain, and eventually death from declining health. The only known cure is for the victim to accept the emotions and pursue the object of her desire. This disease has killed many previous empresses, and is currently a threat to Boa Hancock, who pursues Monkey D. Luffy to avoid the symptoms. |
| Leezle Pon | Green Lantern Corps | A sentient smallpox virus and a member of the Green Lantern Corps. |
| Maternal death syndrome (MDS) | The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers | Latent in everyone and triggered upon pregnancy, it causes rapid progressive brain degeneration and is invariably fatal to both mother and child. Possibly a strain of JC virus. |
| Neurodermatitis | "Dark Benediction" (1951) by Walter Miller Jr. | A pathogen causing rapid nervous system evolution and development of new sensory organs, which causes synesthetic psychosis in unprepared hosts. Sent to Earth by an alien race living in symbiosis with it, in the hopes of furthering other races' advance. Designed for controlled delivery, it is turned into a plague by a curious retriever's cutting the vessel with a hacksaw. |
| Plague of insomnia | One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez | An epidemic brought into the Buendía household and the town of Macondo by Rebeca; the adopted daughter of José Arcadio Buendía and Úrsula Iguarán. This plague, originally coming from the northern Indian kingdoms in La Guajira (Colombia), is identified by the symptoms of wide-open, glowing eyes like those of a cat, and the impossibility of sleeping. Those infected (in the novel consisting of the entire town of Macondo) feel no tiredness or sleepiness whatsoever and hence can work all day and night. However, as time advances, those infected begin to lose all their memories and knowledge of the world; ultimately leaving them in a state in which they have forgotten the names and uses of all things and their own identities. The plague is generally seen as one of the most prominent demonstrations of magical realism in García Márquez's literary works. |
| Pulse | Cell by Stephen King | A powerful virus that lies dormant inside mobile phones and which requires a powerful signal to set off. The exact unleashers are unknown, but are implied to be a terrorist group due to numerous theories in the novel. The virus is implied to have been released just after September 11th, and lain dormant in cell phones ever since. Once the right signal is transmitted and leaked into incoming phone calls, the caller's brain cells immediately disintegrate and they are unable to recognize friend from foe; they are even unable to recognize other people infected with the virus. Inevitably, the infected callers become psychotic and start killing each other, the chaos of which lasts approximately two days before the infected callers have become "stable" enough to cooperate and recognize each other. |
| Queen's Lady plague | Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo | The Queen's Lady plague refers to an outbreak of firepox in Ketterdam about seven years before the events of Six of Crows. It was named after a ship, the Queen's Lady, which was believed to have brought the disease to the city. When an outbreak occurred, the plague sirens sounded to signal all citizens to return to their homes, and the officers of the stadwatch to report to their designated stations around the city. Only the sickboats, bodymen, and mediks were allowed to move freely about the city during an outbreak. |
| Raison strain | Books of History Chronicles by Ted Dekker | Originally a vaccine created by Monique Raison, it was mutated into a deadly virus that succeeded in killing off most of humanity. In the future, its counterpart was the horde disease. |
| Ratitis | Boy by Roald Dahl | A fictional disease invented by Roald Dahl's friend Thwaites during their schooldays in Llandaff. Thwaites made this up to amuse Roald and the other friends, but he says his dad told him about the disease, which is apparently contracted from eating liquorice bootlaces. Thwaites says that the bootlaces actually have rat's blood rather than licorice, and they are done this way by rat-catchers bringing their rats to the sweet factory where they pound the rats into a paste, then mash it up to form licorice bootlaces. Thwaites told Roald and his friends never to eat them, because if they did, a rat's tail would burst out of their buttocks and their teeth would turn into fangs. Only Roald and his friends saw the joke; Thwaites took it with deadpan humor. |
| Ratsbane | Unnatural Causes by Mark Olshaker | A lethal airborne virus hidden in capsules surgically implanted alongside shrapnel in selected soldiers deployed in Vietnam as part of a secret project. |
| Red death | "The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe | Victims bleed from their pores before eventually dying. Most likely a viral hemorrhagic fever. |
| Redface pox | Ōoku: The Inner Chambers by Fumi Yoshinaga | A fictional disease which only affects young boys and has an 80% fatality rate |
| The ripley | Dreamcatcher by Stephen King | An alien parasitoid macrovirus. The adult aliens resemble deformed potato beings with legs, while the younger aliens—nicknamed "shit-weasels" because they can be created in a host organism's stomach and escape by eating their host's body between the stomach and anus– are legless, smaller versions of the adult alien. Both adult and young aliens have a mouth consisting of a slit on the underside of the head that goes down the length of the worm. The lips separate to reveal hundreds of teeth that can bite through steel. |
| Rock disease | Jojo's Bizarre Adventure: Jojolion | A heredity disease passed down by generation-to-generation in the Higashikata family. The disease slowly changes person into rock, starting at the age of ten. There is no known medical cure for the disease. |
| Sakutia | DC Comics | Sakutia is a rare disease closely related to malaria that is lethal to humans. Garfield Logan contracted sakutia while abroad with his parents in Africa and gained shapeshifting abilities from their experimental treatment.[11] |
| Salt plague | Spiritwalker Trilogy by Kate Elliott | Disease that feeds on the salt in its host's body. The host eventually loses their humanity and becomes violently hungry, seeking the salty blood of others. The plague is spread by its victim's bites. |
| Scarlet plague or scarlet death | The Scarlet Plague by Jack London | This 1912 novella is a work of post-apocalyptic fiction treating the world after civilization has been destroyed by this fictional disease. |
| Sevai and vedet | Always Coming Home by Ursula K Le Guin | Genetic diseases of people and animals in the postapocalyptic setting of Always Coming Home, caused by the leftover chemical and radiation pollution. Vedet involves personality disorders and dementia; sevai usually leads to blindness and other sensory loss, along with degeneration of muscle control. Both diseases are painful, crippling, incurable, and fatal. Severity of onset and the length of the course of the illness vary: major damage leads to non-viability in the womb (with a quarter of all children in the valley being stillborn due to sevai); minor damage might not show up until old age and lead to death in a decade. |
| Shame | The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams | Mentioned as being "still a terminal disease in some parts of the Galaxy", this disease seems rife amongst the population of Betelgeuse 5, the fifth planet of the sun Betelgeuse. It killed off the father of Ford Prefect when he was so ashamed that Ford could not say his birth name, "Ix", and this embarrassed Ford and resulted in him being mocked during school. |
| Shiva | Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy | A genetically modified version of Ebola created to help a group of eco-terrorists to annihilate mankind. |
| Sickness/Imperial bioweapons project I71A/Project: Blackwing | Death Troopers, Red Harvest | A virus artificially created by the Sith Lord Darth Drear thousands of years ago in order to achieve immortality. Centuries later, Darth Scabrous successfully completed Drear's unfinished work, but accidentally modified it into a semi-sentient hive mind that creates zombies. The Sith academy on Odacin-Fauster was wiped out by the plague. Thousands of years later, Darth Vader commissioned the Empire's bioweapons division to recreate the virus. Upon completion, the virus was loaded onto the star destroyer Vector for transport to a testing site. En route, the tanks leaked and the destroyer's crew was zombified. The virus is characterized by gray goo. |
| Snow crash | Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson | A dangerous drug that is both a computer virus capable of infecting the brains of unwary hackers in the Metaverse and a mind-altering virus distributed by a network of Pentecostal churches via its infrastructure and belief system. Both forms cause glossolalia, and the computer virus form appears as a snowy pattern of pixels. |
| Solanum virus | World War Z/The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks | A virus that has existed since the beginning of human history, which is highly contagious through bodily fluids such as blood. Solanum symptoms include dementia, paralysis in the extremities, and discoloration of the wound, which increase as the virus replicates itself. The virus is centered on the brain, and destroys the cells of the brain and replaces them with the virus. In doing so, the infected individuals are declared clinically dead. The virus takes around sixteen hours to replicate, although it varies from individual to individual. Once solanum has fully replicated, the victim awakes from the coma, with an unquenchable desire for human flesh. The victim also exhibits typical zombie-like behavior such as psychotic behavior and mindless rage, and can only be killed by destruction of the brain. |
| Space plague | Alisa Selezneva books by Kir Bulychov | A lethal, extremely contagious virus responsible for destroying numerous inhabited planets. Difficult to combat due to the virus being very good in mimicry, as well as capable of forming a hive mind that could direct its own mutations. Earth had narrowly averted destruction in the mid-21st century thanks to the ship carrying two infected being quarantined on Pluto. |
| Spattergroit | Harry Potter | A disease that covers the victim in purple pustules and renders them unable to speak. It may be a type of fungus, as Ron Weasley says that the effect of being unable to speak occurs "once the fungus has spread to your uvula". The only known cure, according to the portrait of a healer in St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, is to bind the liver of a toad around the victim's throat and stand nude in a barrel of eel's eyes under a full moon. The portrait said that he believed Ron had this disease, due to the "unsightly blemishes" on his face. Ron would later use this disease in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as an excuse as to why he was unable to return to Hogwarts, when in actuality he and his friends were out searching for Lord Voldemort's horcruxes. |
| Stand virus | JoJo's Bizarre Adventure | Passed down through family, however it is not hereditary. When a person is infected their family members will be infected at around the same time. It comes from a meteorite that was later made into several arrows. The symptoms of the virus are an intense, untreatable fever. If the person infected has enough willpower and survives, they earn a stand ability that is a manifestation of their soul. Not everybody suffers through the fever before obtaining a stand. |
| Stone sickness | The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell | Not a human disease, but one that affects humans and other inhabitants of the Edge by attacking the rocks of the flight ships that are the primary means of transport and communication on the Edge. As the flight ships are carried aloft by the rocks, this puts an end to business and trade, resulting in a brief societal collapse followed by a gradual rebuilding of society when the Edge's inhabitants become accustomed to life with stone-sickness. Symptoms of infected flight rocks include a brief scar, followed by an open wound and a gaping hole as the rock dissolves. Eventually the sky ship drops clean out of the sky. Many theories abound on the origin of stone-sickness. Some people blame the gods. Others blame the Mother Storm, the mysterious meteorological creator of the Edge. Some say that the sky pirate captain Cloud Wolf who perished in the Mother Storm somehow infected her and the stone-sickness is a result of his pestilence. It is only at the end of the series that it is revealed the Gloamglozer created the disease and it had been incubating inside the Stone Gardens ever since he fled the city of Sanctaphrax almost a century before the sickness. |
| Stripes | A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon | An unnamed disease that causes the affected individual to change color/pattern when names of patterns are used. Cured and/or prevented by being yourself, or not hiding a part of yourself. (The girl in the story loves lima beans, but won't admit it for fear of being "weird".) |
| Super-smallpox | Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz | A genetically engineered version of the smallpox virus that Iraq made in the Gulf War. Herod Sayle used the disease in his plans for vengeance. He genetically modified it so it would kill whoever it infected immediately. Fortunately, the plan was stopped by Alex and the virus was taken and quarantined by MI6. Implied in Snakehead that Sayle acquired the virus (apparently the R-5) from SCORPIA, a SPECTRE-like criminal organisation that sponsored his project. |
| T4 angel virus | Hollows (series) by Kim Harrison | The result of genetic engineering, the T4 angel virus was spread by infected tomatoes. It wiped out a large percentage of humanity, along with the elves and several other species that had been secretly coexisting. Other species unaffected by the virus, such as witches, vampires, and werewolves, soon equaled humanity's depleted numbers and began living openly. Tomatoes are still feared and shunned by humans throughout the series. |
| Teen plague | Black Hole by Charles Burns | Also known as the "bug". It is a mutagenic STD that causes grotesque mutations, such as extra body parts, to grow all over the body. Seems to affect only teenagers. |
| Time-lag | Oxford Time Travel series by Connie Willis | Mental illness caused by a biochemical imbalance due to excessive time travel. Symptoms include fatigue, irritability, blurred vision, impaired hearing and "a tendency to maudlin sentimentality". |
| V-CIDS | The Immortals by Tracy Hickman | An AIDS-like virus. |
| Vampiris | I Am Legend by Richard Matheson | A bacillus (rod-shaped) bacterium that causes photosensitivity, hysterical blindness near mirrors, overdevelopment of canine teeth, and production of a bulletproof adhesive. Victims feed on blood. While in the body, it is anaerobic, and causes the victim to exhibit vampire-like behavior. Outside the body, it sporulates into dust. If an infected person is cut deep enough, the bacteria turns them into powder. Can be treated, but not cured, with a pill containing a fusion inhibitor and dehydrated blood. |
| Venus particle | Tyrannosaur Canyon | An extraterrestrial infectious particle found in a lunar rock sample and within a fantastically well-preserved tyrannosaur fossil in the New Mexico desert. It is later revealed that the organism came to Earth via the Chicxulub asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. The particle, which was named for its resemblance to the symbol of Venus and femininity, causes rapid mitosis and apparent cellular differentiation in its host. |
| Wanderer's folly | The Night Parade by Ronald Malfi | An inexplicable virus with symptoms of delusions, hallucinations, paranoia, and ultimately death, which affects humans and birds and brings the world close to the brink of extinction while allowing insects to overpopulate. The illness is named after the first few cases, where the infected, lost in daydream-like hallucinations, wandered into traffic. |
| Wandering sickness | The Shape of Things to Come by H. G. Wells | A product of biological warfare, the disease in its final stages causes victims to wander about in a zombielike daze; with civilization reduced to that of the Dark Ages the only effective response is to kill any infected person before they can spread the contagion to others. The disease was also portrayed in the 1936 film adaptation Things to Come. |
| White blindness | Blindness by José Saramago | A mysterious epidemic of sudden blindness affecting virtually all humanity, leading to society's collapse. So-called because victims see nothing but a white glare. Not to be confused with the white blindness in Watership Down which is a name the rabbits use for the real illness myxomatosis that affects rabbits causing blindness and death. |
| Wildcard coccus | A Certain Magical Index by Kazuma Kamachi | It is a highly virulent killer bacterium. Its method of infection was very complex and it would mix in with other microorganisms and multiply. It could be transmitted via air, blood, mouth, or skin contact. It could grow even more dangerous by combining with athlete's foot, Lactobacillus, or other extremely common pathogens. |
| White disease | The White Disease by Karel Čapek | An incurable form of leprosy, killing people older than 30. |
| White plague | The White Plague by Frank Herbert | A genetically engineered virus that kills only women. Released only on the Irish, English, and Libyans. |
| White sickness | Burning Bright by Melissa Scott | White sickness, a pneumatic histopathy, also known as lung‑rot oruhanjao, translatable as "drown‑yourself" in the language of the story's aliens – is classified as a dangerous condition less because it is fatal, which it is, than because it is contagious until treated. Simple organ transplants inevitably fail, due to the mechanisms by which the disease alters the lung tissue, slowly dissolving it into a thick white mucus, so that the patient drowns in body fluids even as the lungs themselves stop working. |
| Wildfire virus | The Walking Dead | A viral disease of unknown origin. When a human is infected with wildfire, the disease will infect all cells and lay dormant until the host dies. After the victim's clinical death, the host will be reanimated and exhibit zombie-like behavior. However the disease will only activate lower brain function, mostly those controlled by the brain-stem, where feeding and motor functions are controlled. The host becomes a violent, mindless cannibal, and can infect other people with the active agent of the wildfire virus by biting or scratching, eventually resulting in the clinical death of the host. The symptoms that occur before the victim's clinical death include fever, headache, fatigue, confusion, hallucinations and paralysis. The disease has a very short incubation period of around 48 hours. The disease leads to society's collapse and results in a world stricken by a zombie apocalypse. |
| Xenovirus takis-A | Wild Cards by George R. R. Martin | Xenovirus takis-A, also known as the wild card virus, works by completely altering the victim's DNA. It has been theorized that the process is guided by the victim's own subconscious, influenced by the person's desires or fears. In this way, the virus works as a modern Aladdin's lamp. The transformation is extremely individual, no two persons are affected in exactly the same way. In 90% of cases, the victim's body cannot assimilate the extreme changes, and the person dies horribly. These cases are called black queens. From the survivors, 9 out of 10 are changed for the worse, becoming monstrous creatures nicknamed jokers. The miraculous 1% of infected are changed for the better and become aces, gifted with superhuman physical or mental capabilities while still remaining human in appearance. |
| Xenovirus takis-B | Wild Cards by George R. R. Martin | Xenovirus takis-B, also known as the trump virus, is an artificial organism created by Dr. Tachyon as a possible cure for the wild card virus. Ideally, the trump virus reverses the genetic changes caused by the wild card virus, transforming a wild carder back into a normal person. The trump virus is only successful in about 24% of attempts. It doesn't work at all 47% of the time, and an appalling 29% of the time, it outright kills the patient. In other words, it is more likely to kill than cure. The Jokertown Clinic only uses the trump virus as a last resort, in the most severe cases where the victim has nothing to lose. |
In film
[edit]| Name | Source | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Brain cloud | Joe Versus the Volcano | The brain cloud has no symptoms – apart from quickly and painlessly killing in about six months. Possibly made up by the doctor making the diagnosis, given how it relates to the plot of the film. |
| Carnosaur virus | Carnosaur | A genetically engineered virus created by Dr. Jane Tiptree. Infects fertile women of child-bearing age (including Dr. Tiptree herself), making them pregnant with a dinosaur. Rather than being born, upon maturation the dinosaurs tear their way out of the womb, killing the woman in the process. |
| Chimera | Mission Impossible II | Chimera has a 20-hour dormancy period before it causes death by mass destruction of the victim's red blood cells. Bellerophon can only save the victim if used within that 20-hour window. |
| Climate change denial disorder | Climate Change Denial Disorder | Satirical parody comedy film about a fictional disease causing individuals to lose understanding of words and concepts related to climate change denial.[12][13][14] |
| Coma | Clive Barker's The Plague | Affects all children. Induces a 10-year coma, after which the children simultaneously wake up and desire to kill all adults. |
| The flare, flarevirus VC321xB47 | Maze Runner trilogy | This virus was created by the fictional Post-Flares Coalition as a means of population control. The virus slowly eats away at the victim's brain, turning the host into a bloodthirsty, irrational humans called "Cranks" who consider killing, cannibalism and torture as everyday objectives. A mutation of this disease, referred to as "the Sting" by the Gladers, can be delivered by Grievers into their victims. However, there are people who are immune to the virus, but this is only less than 1% of the population. The series as a whole revolves around WICKED/WCKD (World in Catastrophe Killzone Experiment Department/World Catastrophe Killzone Department) trying to find a cure for the virus in order to correct the mistake of releasing the virus. Although they succeed in the movies, they fail in the books. |
| Fever | Cabin Fever Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever | Necrotizing fasciitis caused by an unknown bacterium which causes massive hemorrhaging and tissue necrosis. The first symptom of the disease is usually a painful rash, which develops into a scabby or weeping wound. In later stages, tissues become soft and slough away. The initial rash stage can be exacerbated by harsh physical trauma, as was seen when one affected woman discovered hand-shaped rashes on her body, where she had recently been tightly held during a passionate sexual encounter. It also seemed to indicate that physical exertion also accelerates the progression of the disease. The disease is transmitted when an infected creatures' blood is exposed to a victim's bloodstream (bare skin contact with infectious blood is implied to not result in infection). It can also be contracted through unprotected sexual activity and by drinking contaminated water. The disease spreads cross-species and was initially discovered in a dead dog. Where the dog contracted the disease is unknown. Despite the name of the franchise, fever is never indicated as being a symptom of the disease. |
| Geostigma | Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children | A disease caused by Jenova's presence in the Lifestream as it rose to destroy Meteor in the ending of Final Fantasy VII. Decreases the efficiency of the body's immune system-like inner Lifestream current. Also causes exhaustion and black sores appearing on the skin. Mostly affects children due to their weaker constitutions. Healed by Aerith Gainsborough's Great Gospel healing rain. |
| Hemoglophagia (HGV) | Ultraviolet | Disease responsible for turning many humans into vampire-like creatures. Contrary to most vampiral diseases, hemoglophagia drastically shortens the lifespan of an infected individual to little over a decade. |
| Host's disease | The Host | The unnamed disease carried by the giant monster terrorizing South Korea. In actuality, there was no virus; the government claimed the monster was spreading a disease just to save face. |
| ID-7, red eye | Mayhem | The virus infects neural pathways, removing all inhibition and moral integrity, resulting in people acting out their darkest impulses, which may include murder. |
| Infertility epidemic | Children of Men | A mysterious epidemic has led to worldwide infertility in women. The human race has lost the ability to reproduce. However, the story involves a woman who secretly turns out to be pregnant and, as a result, holds the only hope of survival in her child who is immune to the epidemic. |
| Krippin virus (KV) | I Am Legend | A genetically re-engineered measles virus originally created as a "miracle cure" for cancer, but mutated into a lethal, highly pathogenic strain. KV has a 90% mortality rate; less than 1% of humans are immune. Two transmission vectors for the pathogen are inhalation and infected blood, with two corresponding immunity profiles. Infected humans who did not die began exhibiting early symptoms of rabies and degenerated into a state driven by rage. A major symptom is that the adrenal glands are "permanently open", giving victims increased strength, speed and agility but also a faster metabolism. This results in increased body temperature, heart rate, and breathing speed, making those infected hyperventilate constantly. Pupils became permanently dilated and skin became hypersensitive to UV radiation, forcing infected hosts into a nocturnal life cycle. Loss of body hair is another symptom. Non-humans such as rats and dogs are also susceptible to KV. They are sensitive to blood. Those infected are similar to vampires. |
| Lamanla virus | Wolf Warrior 2 | "Symptoms include the sudden onset fever, hallucinations, lesions, cold sweats. It is a fatal virus that's transmitted through direct human contact. Upon contraction, death strikes between four hours and five months." |
| Lampington's disease | Last Holiday | In the original 1950 film, the disease seems to have been a tumor in the abdomen (the patient's X-ray is used to indicate something "between the stomach and the small intestine", although a shot of the pelvis is actually being shown). Here, it is an untreatable, terminal condition which is nearly pain-free, but which leads to coma and death within a couple of weeks to a couple of months at the most. It is explained as a recently discovered condition, described by and named for Sir Trevor Lampington, a character who also appears in the plot. In the 2006 remake, the disease has morphed into a neurological disease causing multiple brain tumors, rapidly progressing to death within a few weeks if not treated with an exorbitant operation. |
| MM88 | Virus | MM88 is a deadly type of virus created accidentally by an American geneticist that amplifies the potency of any other virus or bacterium it comes into contact with. It has a 100% mortality rate; however, the virus is inactive at temperatures below -10 degrees Celsius. The virus is stolen and is found in East Germany, and during an attempt to steal it back it is released accidentally after the plane carrying it crashes. A pandemic spreads worldwide and is dubbed the "Italian flu". Eventually wiping out all vertebrate life on Earth except for a grouping of Antarctic scientists and submariners from various nations, the survivors set up a government council at the various research stations at the time of the devastating global pandemic and attempt to survive; however, the air worldwide is contaminated, making Antarctica the only safe place for the roughly 800 or so survivors. |
| MacGregor's syndrome | Batman & Robin | A four-stage disease that Mr. Freeze's wife, Nora, had and was placed in cryogenic stasis for. The film also revealed that Batman's butler, Alfred Pennyworth, was also had stage-1 MacGregor's. Mr. Freeze successfully created the antidote for stage-1 of the disease, and gave some of it to Batman as an apology for thinking that Batman killed Nora. |
| Mad zombie disease | Zombieland | The disease which caused people, upon receiving a bite from one of the infected, to become zombies. The disease is a mutation of mad cow disease, which became mad human disease, and then mutated to form mad zombie disease. |
| Malignalitaloptereosis | The Sword in the Stone | A rare disease which causes the victim to break out in spots, followed by hot and cold flashes, then violent sneezing. Merlin infects Madam Mim with the disease during their duel, causing her to forfeit. |
| Meningoencephalitis virus one (MEV-1) | Contagion | A highly contagious and lethal paramyxovirus that infects both the lungs and the brain, causing coughing, fever and severe headache, progressing over the period of a few hours to seizures and ultimately death. |
| Methuselah syndrome | Blade Runner | A genetic disease resembling progeria that causes faster aging. |
| Motaba | Outbreak | A deadly, virulent Ebola-like virus from the jungles of Zaire, which later infected a fictional California town within a few days. |
| Nerve attenuation syndrome (NAS) | Johnny Mnemonic | AKA "The Black Shakes", progressive seizure disorder prevalent in society due to the overabundance of technology and the use of cybernetics. Attacks are sporadic, but become more frequent over time until the victim expires. |
| Neurological degeneration syndrome (NDS) | Absolon | A highly-contagious airborne virus, released into the atmosphere from the destruction of the Amazon rainforest causes quick and painful deaths. The only way of controlling the virus is expensive, daily, painful injections of the drug Absolon. Society has been rebuilt on the sale of Absolon, a multibillion-dollar industry. A detective searches for the killer who murdered the scientist who has found a cure for NDS, potentially making Absolon worthless. |
| NRS and UBT | Demolition Man | Two STDs, NRS and UBT, have caused epidemics that occurred during the 36 years Spartan was incarcerated via cybergenics, and both were presumably just as bad as the HIV outbreak, both of which made sex, kissing, and even touching each other both illegal and greatly feared by the populace. |
| The panic | The Last Days (Los últimos días) | The virus causes people to have extreme agoraphobia. If victims are forced to go outside, they panic, go into seizures, and die. |
| The Patriot (1998) | An unnamed highly contagious airborne virus which has been stolen from a government biological warfare laboratory. Its early symptoms include a rash, and it is quickly fatal. It is not clear in the film whether the virus was supposed to have been harvested from the wild (such as Ebola) and then grown as a weapon, or whether the laboratory first engineered it in some way. In the film, the leader of a local militia has obtained both the virus and what he believes to be a vaccine for it, and decides to start an epidemic with the virus, believing that he will be safe because he has taken the vaccine. A local doctor of Indian (Native American) ancestry fights to find a cure for it. | |
| Rage, human cortico-deficiency virus | 28 Days Later 28 Weeks Later | Rage causes extreme aggression in a victim ten to thirty seconds after being infected with the disease. The disease is easily transmissible through any bodily fluid, such as blood and saliva, but not semen. Because of this extreme contagiousness and very short incubation period, a crowd of hundreds could be infected by one single individual in minutes. A graphic novel based on the films purports that rage is a recombinant strain of Ebola, though its symptoms are similar to rabies. Animal testing was being performed on the disease but one animal was released by activists unaware of the virus. The infection soon spread to eliminate the entire population of Britain save a few individuals. Infected organisms die out in a few months, succumbing to starvation, since they do not actually eat their victims. They also seem to drool blood constantly, due to the virus causing massive amounts of adrenaline to be pumped through the body, giving the infected heightened strength and endurance, to the point where they are able to completely overlook devastating injuries, such as loss of limbs. The infected also sport red eye color, and bleed from the eyes, mouth and nose. |
| Rage plague | Braindead | A disease carried by Sumatran rat-monkeys, found only on Skull Island, which kills victims and then reanimates them as zombie-like creatures that desire human flesh. Those who are killed will also reanimate as zombies. After prolonged infection, physical mutations may occur, such as gigantism. |
| Reaper | Doomsday | Reaper causes effects similar to bubonic plague. It appeared in Scotland in the year 2008 and killed most of the inhabitants. Scotland was put under quarantine. Some decades later, reaper reappears in London. A cure is found several days later, but it is unknown whether or not it will be given to the population. |
| Red death | Osmosis Jones | Thrax is an anthropomorphic germ that causes this disease. Most likely a strain of streptococcus. Anything touched with Thrax's elongated left pointer finger ends up being incinerated, and this is shown to kill a cell in seconds. Symptoms include a sore throat, runny nose, and eventually a gradual extreme increase in the victim's body temperature (represented by Thrax stealing his victim's hypothalamus) to fatal levels. Exposure to ethanol is shown to kill this disease, as seen when Thrax fell into an alcohol sample during the climax. |
| Say the opposite of what you mean disease | Ace Ventura: Pet Detective | A disease which causes the speaker to say the opposite of the correct answer to a question posed by another party. This disease was thought up on the spot by Ace after he realizes that the people in the bar think poorly of Ray Finkle. |
| Severe olfactory syndrome (SOS) and severe hearing loss syndrome (SHLS) | Perfect Sense | A disease which slowly causes the hosts to lose their senses. It is unknown what pathogen causes the disease, or how it spreads from person to person, but it has infected people globally, and that at least one human, a newborn in Berlin, possibly had antibodies against the disease. The disease starts with a depressive episode, what is then followed by the loss of sense of smell. Then, humans experience a sudden episode of panic and anxiety, as well as a fit of animalistic hunger, what is then followed by the loss of taste. Next, the infected people experience aggression (causing unrest and chaos worldwide), and lose their hearing. And finally, the hosts experience a sudden episode of euphoria, before losing their vision. |
| ALZ-112, ALZ-113, simian flu | Planet of the Apes (Rise, Dawn and War) | A genetically engineered retrovirus that was created in Gen-sys Laboratories in San Francisco. It was originally designed to be a cure for Alzheimer's disease. The ALZ-112 increased intelligence in apes and cured humans but only for a temporary period because of their immune systems creating antibodies to fight the virus. ALZ-113 was a stronger version of the drug, but it developed into a viral airborne and contact strain that wiped out most of the human race leaving only 1 in 500 immune to the virus. In humans it developed symptoms including sneezing, headache, sore throat, fever, vomiting, red eyes, coughing and finally death. The virus later mutates and causes temporary bleeding from the nose and mouth and degenerates most humans into a more caveman-like state by making them lose their ability to speak and making them less intelligent. In great apes it increases their intelligence beyond that of a normal human, makes their irises green, gives them a more human locomotion, such as extended upright walking and usage of primitive weapons in a human manner and alters their vocal cords to that of a humans, granting them the power of speech. |
| SP-43 | Derailed (2002) | SP-43 is a modified form of smallpox (variola) that has an extremely short incubation period. Its development is part of the back story, which is not completely clear, but given the fact that it appears to have been stolen in Slovakia and is being transported to Munich by a NATO agent, it appears to have been developed by the Czechoslovak government or some other Eastern Bloc country during the Cold War. |
| Space herpes | The Ice Pirates | An extremely dangerous disease. In its dormant form it can be activated by heat and moisture. There is no known antibody.[15] |
| Space rabies | Howard the Duck | A disease which Howard claims to have to intimidate would-be attackers and make an escape. He claims it causes "agonizing death in fifteen seconds". |
| Stick-it-to-da-man-niosis | School of Rock | A rare blood disease made up by Jack Black's character Dewey Finn which he claims the children he is teaching are suffering from. The name comes from his mantra "stick it to the man". When another character claims they've never heard of it, Dewey responds, "You're lucky. Because it's hell." |
| St. Mary's | V for Vendetta | A biological weapon engineered and released by the Norsefire party as a means of clandestinely gaining control over their own country. |
| Synaptic/neuro overstimulation syndrome (SOS/NOS) | Repo! The Genetic Opera | A disease of unknown origin that killed roughly ten million people at the beginning of the 21st century in the Repo!-verse. It creates massive organ failure and apparently has no cure, though it can be treated by organ transplants. |
| Synaptic seepage | Johnny Mnemonic | Caused by downloading too much information into the brain. Causes cerebral hemorrhage and data corruption. It kills in approximately three days, and causes intermittent seizures. |
| Temporal dysplasia | Stitchers | A condition in which a person could not sense the passing of time – akin to tachypsychia |
| Trixie | The Crazies (1973), The Crazies (2010) | A highly contagious Rhabdoviridae prototype biological weapon. Causes those exposed to it to become homicidal. |
| Thing cells | The Thing | Triangle-pyramid viruses that makes up Thing monsters. If it enters another animal, it fuses with every cell of the host, possessing the host entirely. Each infected cell becomes an individual life form with its own desire to survive. An infected cell will seek out other cells to infect with its virus, and will work together with other infected cells to imitate other life forms. Because infected cells can rapidly duplicate and shapeshift, and because dislocated, pieces of an infected host will shapeshift and become separate entities. Infected hosts can only be killed if every individual cell is destroyed. Finally, hosts retain their knowledge and memories, allowing the virus to perfectly imitate any person and remain undetected. The only effective way of killing the Thing monsters is through incineration, for instance with a flamethrower. |
| Tunguska spores | Metallica's "All Nightmare Long" music video | Extraterrestrial spores resembling armored worms that mimic other cells in a foreign organism helping the host and if the host is deceased the spores will proceed to revive the organism, However use of the spores results with unreasonable anger. |
| Wexler's curtain, autotoxic hematosa | Short Time | "A progressive blood disorder in which the lymphatic system actually attacks the red blood cells, mistaking them for an invading virus. It is very rare. As the disease progresses, the lining of the cells become weakened to the point where they can no longer oxygenate the body, this of course, includes the brain." |
In television
[edit]| Name | Source | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Alice Tetch virus | Gotham | A virus extracted by Jervis Tetch from the blood of Alice Tetch, a patient at the Indian Hill facility underneath the Arkham Asylum. Its symptoms are hallucinations, hearing voices, increasing muscle and bone power, reddened eyes and the reveal of a person's darkest secrets. |
| Amber lead syndrome | One Piece | A hereditary and non-contagious disease, this was caused by the handling of a rare ore called amber lead, which only occurred naturally in the country of Flevance. This syndrome caused every subsequent generation in a bloodline to have their life expectancy shortened. When the amber lead concentration in the body is fatally high, white blotches appear on the victim's skin, their hair becomes white, and they feel intense chronic pain. The only known survivor of this syndrome is Trafalgar D. Water Law. |
| Amoria phlebitis | The Simpsons ("Bart Gets an 'F'") | Amoria phlebitis is characterized by sharp, stabbing pains in the stomach, a shooting pain in the arm and temporary loss of vision. |
| Airborne clown virus | Ben 10: Omniverse | A synthetic virus created by Zombozo to turn all of Bellwood into zombie clowns. |
| Avian bone syndrome | 30 Rock ("Corporate Crush") | In the episode Phoebe, a love interest of Jack Donaghy who appears in three episodes, claims to have this condition which she says gives her hollow bones. While a fictional disease, it is loosely related to a group of genetic disorders known as osteogenesis imperfecta. Emily Mortimer, the actress who played Phoebe, is still asked about the disease many years after this role.[16] |
| Barclay's protomorphosis syndrome | Star Trek: The Next Generation ("Genesis") | A viral infection that causes an infected person to "de-evolve". Caused by a synthetic T-cell which mistakenly activated introns in one's DNA. Named for Lt. Reginald Barclay who first contracted the disease when he was administered the synthetic T-cell due to a genetic condition which when left on its own was inactive. Said synthetic T-cell caused all dormant introns to activate rather than the defective T-cell. |
| Barman's hand | Time Gentlemen Please | A condition which prevents Guv, the landlord of the pub, from performing any bar related work whenever he tries. |
| Bendii syndrome | Star Trek: The Next Generation ("Sarek") | A degenerative neurological illness that occasionally afflicts some elderly Vulcans. Symptoms include a gradual loss of emotional control and a telepathic influence on non-Vulcans to exhibit similar emotional volatility. Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan is diagnosed with this illness, so he preserves his memories through a mind-meld with Captain Picard. Sarek later dies from this illness while Picard is deep in Romulan space in search of his friend's son, Spock. Days after breaking the news to Spock of Sarek's passing, Spock and Picard meld so they can share Sarek's memories. |
| Big death | Jeremiah | A supervirus which affects everyone on Earth over the age of puberty. It spreads quickly and is almost 100% fatal, although there are apparently some carriers who do not develop the disease. After the disease has run its course it disappears, allowing those then reaching puberty to survive, although there is a constant threat of it returning. |
| Bliss virus | Doctor Who ("Gridlock") | Appeared around five billion years into the future on New Earth. It began when New Earthlings developed a new mood-drug called Bliss. The world became addicted to it and, in Novice Hame's words, "A virus mutated inside the compound and became airborne. Everything died. Even the virus in the end. It killed the world in seven minutes flat." |
| Blue shadow virus | Star Wars: The Clone Wars | A lethal virus capable of killing a planet's entire population. Eradicated prior to the Clone Wars, it was recreated by the insane Separatist scientist Dr. Nuvo Vindi as a weapon against the Republic. Can only be cured with the root of the reeksa plant. Symptoms include muscular weakness, cough, and fainting, and if not cured in time, the victim will die. In its original liquid-bound form, it could kill a life-form almost instantly. |
| Bone-itis | Futurama ("Future Stock") | In the episode, "80s Guy" has bone-itis and cryogenically freezes himself in order to sustain his life until a cure is found (having gutted a pharmaceutical company that came close to developing a cure for a profit of $100,000,000). Upon waking up, however, he neglects to have it cured, and dies suddenly as his bones contort horrifically. Not to be confused with osteitis. |
| Bonerplasia | Saturday Night Live | In the October 4, 2008 episode, bonerplasia is a fictional condition which is allegedly a kind of chronic priapism. A man (played by Jason Sudeikis) used it as a fake explanation for why he constantly got erections around a woman, Amber (played by Anne Hathaway), he was secretly attracted to though claiming to be gay. However, she believed him, because she "read the bonerplasia article on Wikipedia", only for the man to then reveal "I actually wrote that article". |
| Bonus eruptus | The Simpsons ("22 Short Films About Springfield") | A likely made-up condition described by Dr. Nick Riviera where the victim's skeleton tries to leap out of the body through the mouth and run away. |
| Bowden's malady | Firefly | A degenerative disease that affects the bone and muscle, the only known treatment being a drug called Pescaline D. The disease is considered a "quirk" of planetary terraforming – the result of underground air mixing with a mine's ore processors. |
| BS | Arrested Development | A disease which causes paralysis and eventual death, fabricated by Maeby Fünke to explain the terminal illness of her (also fictitious) twin sister. When questioned by her cousin George Michael Bluth about what the initials "BS" stood for, she replied, "I don't know. It's BS." |
| Chen-7 | Doctor Who ("The Girl Who Waited") | An airborne infectious disease that only infects species with two hearts. Also referred to as the "one day plague", because its victims die within a day. |
| Chickenitis | Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! ("Woozy Walden") | This a fictional disease in which Walden "clucks" like a chicken when he tries to talk. |
| Chickenpox | Codename: Kids Next Door ("Operation: M.A.U.R.I.C.E.") | This is a fictional strain of common chickenpox; it is spread by contact with live chickens, and the boils on the victim's skin resemble live, cackling chicken faces. Otherwise, it is the same as regular chickenpox. |
| Circusitis | Futurama ("Proposition Infinity") | Circusitis is a disease that affects "children of all ages". Circusitis' symptoms include red nose, swollen feet, orange hair, extremely pale face, and sneezing handkerchiefs which make all look like a stereotypical clown. |
| Cluckitis | The Muppet Show | A victim of this highly contagious disease turns into a chicken; victims retain their true voices and mannerisms, but some develop chicken-like habits, like building nests. After almost every Muppet catches it, guest star Roger Miller (who claims to have had it once) assures Kermit that it goes away by itself in a few days. Also, because Gonzo doesn't catch it, and he tends to hang around chickens a lot, he likely has developed an immunity to it. |
| Condiment dysfunction | Soyracha (TV commercial) | Condiment dysfunction is the inability to salivate due to a lack of flavor. |
| Constadeath | The Shivering Truth | Constadeath, described as "death squared", is a condition which causes sufferers to die once every few seconds for the rest of their lives (although this does not mean that they would still be alive). The only known treatment for constadeath is a part-Hinduism-based reincarnation therapy, causing patients to gain the head of a new animal whenever they die from the condition. |
| Cordilla virus | 24 | The Cordilla virus was a type 3 immuno-pulmonary virus that is similar to the hantavirus. The incubation period of the virus was initially 14 hours but decreased significantly as a result of a weaponized variant added. The symptoms of the virus were nose-bleeds, hemorrhaging, skin abscesses and eventually death. |
| Cosmic rust | Transformers | A disease which affects Cybertronians and possibly other mechanical lifeforms caused by a micro organism that feeds on metal. If left untreated an infected transformer eventually crumbles into a pile of rust. |
| CoVA | Épidémie | A disease caused by an eponymous coronavirus, carried by ferrets. The disease caused an outbreak in Quebec, largely affecting Montreal's homeless Inuit population, what caused social stigma and the appearance of a nickname, "Inuit disease". It is also possibly present in Mexico. The symptoms include a fever, a shortness of breath, coughing and dizziness. Some of the patients also exhibited heart problems. One of the patients, a vet who traveled to Mexico, had a rare gastrointestinal form of the disease, which caused diarrhea. GS-49, a medication produced by a company in Boston, Massachusetts, turned out to be an effective treatment against CoVA, however, counterfeit GS-49 was sold online and caused at least one death. Turmeric tea was also advertised as a cure, even though it had no effect. |
| Croatoan virus | Supernatural | A virus that is demonic in origin. It creates an unnatural murderous rage in infected people. |
| Cutie pox | My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic | A magic-borne disease that causes ponies to sprout cutie marks all over their body and uncontrollably act out the talents that they represent. It disappears on its own, but can be quickly cured by consuming a flower sprouted from the seeds of truth. Apple Bloom accidentally infected herself with cutie pox when she used a magic plant called heart's desire to create a potion that would give her a cutie mark; she confessed to stealing the heart's desire from Zecora in order to sprout the seeds of truth and gain the cure. |
| Cybonic plague | Transformers: Prime | A virus developed by Megatron as a biological weapon. Optimus Prime falls victim to the plague, and Bumblebee persuades Megatron to give him the formula, allowing Ratchet to develop a cure. |
| Dave's syndrome | Black Books | A condition which is known to affect Manny, it is triggered by being exposed to a temperature of at least 88 °F (31 °C). While the exact effects of the disease are not described, a scene at the end of the episode shows the results – Manny is driven to madness and totally ransacks the area outside the shop, before using a hot water bottle as a loincloth, grabbing a flaming torch and painting "Eat Me" on his stomach, whilst jumping on the roof of an abandoned car. Bernard dismisses it as "attention-seeking rubbish" throughout the episode. |
| Deep root disease | Gemini Home Entertainment | A condition spread by contact with aliens known as Woodcrawlers. Woodcrawlers embed parasites called "roots" into human skin. These parasites tunnel into the human body until they reach bone, at which point they spread around the body. The roots destroy human flesh until the victim is entirely made out of roots. Whether or not victims of deep root disease are still conscious is ambiguous. Other varieties of deep root disease exist, including one called "nature's mockery" that transforms the victim into a mycelium-like mass.[17] |
| Deep space disorder | Planetes | A condition which is known to affect Hachirota "Hachimaki" Hoshino after an accident in orbit on the dark side of the moon, during a solar storm which left him isolated in complete darkness. He is retrieved with negligible physical effects, but is diagnosed with deep space disorder, a mental disorder that can cripple an EVA astronaut with severe hallucinations. |
| Dermatemeculitis | Drake & Josh | A skin disease that causes the hands and feet of the body to turn a sickly green color. This can usually only be cured by a series of painful injections. A rumored alternate cure is to soak the hands and feet in buckets of a substance called zypholic acid, which can be found in lizard urine. The hands and feet must be soaked for no less than 45 minutes. Megan tricks Drake into thinking he has this disease because he ate a cookie that was hers, and later states, "You know, there's another cure: Next time, don't eat my big cookie." |
| Desperation disease | Eureka 7 | A disease that strikes randomly and has no known vector of contagion. Individuals gradually become detached from the world until they are completely catatonic. The name of the disease does not come from the victims' state, who seem to be communing with something metaphysical, but rather, from their families who despair of trying to wake them. |
| Dark Gundam cells | Mobile Fighter G Gundam | Nanomachines from the Devil Gundam (Dark Gundam in the North American version) infect living organisms and undergo mitosis, allowing the Devil Gundam to control the victim. The victim will gain super-strength and self-recovery abilities and if inside a mobile fighter, will spread the cells to the mobile fighter and give it the abilities of the Devil Gundam, often mutating the mobile fighter into a stronger robot. If the cells have not reached the brain, the victim can be cured. |
| Diminished gluteal syndrome (DGS) | King of the Hill | A fictional genetic disorder characterized by a person being born without buttocks, forcing them to sit on their tailbone and cause pain in their back. The disease has no cure or treatment, although fake saline buttocks are able to relieve pain caused by sitting on the spine. |
| Double prison plague, shackelitis | Hogan's Heroes ("The Prisoner's Prisoner") | A fictional disease invented by Colonel Hogan. In the early stages, the victim's neck will swell but the victim will not feel any different. In the second stage, the victim's body heat will go up dramatically, followed by loss of movement in the legs and furious chills. |
| Drafa plague | Babylon 5 | The disease destroys cells that produce neurotransmitters in the synaptic gap, thus inhibiting nerve signals from the brain to the rest of the body. Without such signals from the brain, the organs lose their ability to function correctly, much like ALS in humans. It is only contagious among those alien species which used specialized cells to produce neurotransmitters, and among these species, it is 100% terminal within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms. Initial symptoms include dizziness, numbness and tingling in the extremities, sore throat, followed by progressively worsening ascending paralysis, euphoria, memory issues, then death. Fortunately for most of the other sentient races in Babylon 5, their lack of such specialized neurotransmitter cells render them immune to the disease, save for the Pak'Ma'Ra, whose green cells were similar enough to the Markab yellow cells that a Pak'Ma'Ra died of it on the station. The disease caused the Markab to go extinct. Similar to the Black Death and HIV/AIDS among humans, the Drafa plague bears a stigma among the Markab as a disease that the public felt was only caught by those considered sinful, immoral or unclean by Markab standards, and a punishment by their gods for committing such acts. The disease was named after an island on their homeworld where its inhabitants were wiped out by the disease, an island noted in Markab history for its decadence and immorality. The story of the island was eventually used to frighten small Markab children into behaving. Even accusing a Markab of being infected with the disease can bring shame, paranoia, fear, and an angry response from the accused, and Markab doctors would frequently certify someone's death from the disease as death by natural causes, so the family could avoid a scandal and the implied accusation that they or their family were unclean or immoral. |
| Ecola | Spaceballs: The Animated Series | E. coli and Ebola injected into a carbonated drink, creating a "deadly soda that will kill our enemies". Drinking the soda causes immediate and profuse vomiting, which then spreads the disease. Even plants can contract it. |
| Electrogonnorhea | Futurama | An STD humans can contract from robots. Called the "noisy killer". |
| Electric flu | Pokémon | A condition when an electric Pokémon builds up too much electricity in its body or makes contact with an electromagnetic field. Characterized by sparks coming from the Pokémon's cheeks, a red face, and uncontrolled bursts of electricity. Curable by having the Pokémon expunge the excess electricity. |
| Entitilitus | Mr. Show | The opening sketch in the first episode of the first season. No one knows where entitilitus comes from, or what entitilitus is, but entitilitus kills. |
| Epideme | Red Dwarf ("Epideme") | An intelligent virus, it was originally devised as a cure for nicotine addiction, but in practice it rapidly consumes the host before hijacking the body, and then attempting to transfer itself to another suitable host via bites or saliva transmission. If no hosts are available, epideme can force its host into a state of hibernation, encasing the body in a tomb of ice-like material until it detects life nearby and thaws. Epideme steals the knowledge from every host it consumes, which has crafted it into an extremely smart, eccentric and deadly virus. |
| European flu | Survivors | A strain of flu based on the real Spanish flu, but has killed 99.9% of mankind. |
| Fluvus pestilentia | Grimm ("Quill") | An enterobacteria affecting only Wesen, characterized by lack of inhibitions, strong affection, yellow boils, and, finally, psychosis. |
| Fried chicken flu, KFC virus | The Boondocks ("The Fried Chicken Flu") | Actually salmonella, but initially believed to be something far worse, causing the collapse of several governments before the real cause is revealed. |
| Genie flu | Genie in the House | A disease of genies which causes them to change colors, become invisible and have squeaky voices. |
| Geodermic granititis, cobbles | Look Around You | A disease that attacks the central nervous system, fooling it into calcifying the bodily tissue, eventually turning the victim into a pile of rocks. More commonly known as cobbles. |
| Cyberbrain sclerosis | Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex | A disease characterized by a hardening of the brain tissues precipitated by the cyberization process. It is described as being that century's cancer or tuberculosis. Cyberbrain sclerosis is described as being extremely rare, enough so that it doesn't deter most people from being cyberized, but it is incurable once diagnosed. |
| Ghost sickness | Supernatural | A sickness which is contracted from prolonged proximity with ghosts, which causes hallucinations, fever, chills and extreme fear. Dean Winchester contracted this disease from an evil ghost he encountered and became immensely afraid of every single thing he encountered, even being afraid of a cat. The vanquishing of the ghost defeated the disease. |
| Groat's disease | Curb Your Enthusiasm | A neurological disorder presumed to have a high mortality rate through a slow, painful process. Rob Reiner describes it affecting "kids and adults who have a tough time controlling their hyperactivity. It is as if you were on five cups of coffee at all times." It was named after the doctor who discovered it. Larry David, who writes the show, came up with the name of the disease when he thought baseball player Dick Groat's name sounded like the name of a disease and in the show Larry assumes it was named for Dick Groat, who he assumes must have had the disease because, as Larry says, "he didn't field very well because he was excited all the time". |
| The gush | Jam ("Jam 2: Astonishing Sod Ape") | A disease often caught by male porn stars which causes uncontrollable and unstoppable ejaculation, eventually resulting in the victim's death after several days, during which time their semen turns red and, eventually, black. |
| Hades | Covert One: The Hades Factor | A blood-borne/airborne virus that causes severe internal hemorrhaging and bleeding from every orifice. It has an incubation period of 12–24 hours. Kills within another 24 hours. |
| Hate plague | Transformers | Bacterial spore of unknown origin transmitted by touch. Induces extreme paranoia and aggression in the infected, causing them to strike out against anyone or anything in an increasingly maddening desire to destroy. Symptoms include a deep reddish glow emanating from the infected. The only curative is intense logic and wisdom, which presumably counters the extreme irrationality the disease causes in its victims. First appearing during the Autobot-Decepticon wars (which necessitated the second resurrection of Optimus Prime), a relatively milder strain is seen again during the events of Beast Machines; Megatron triggers a pre-planted virus in Silverbolt, infecting him and the rest of the Maximals. The strain is cured, again, by intense logic and wisdom. |
| Harvester virus | Star Trek: Deep Space Nine ("Armageddon Game") | Described as a "nanobiogenic weapon", the harvesters were developed by the T'Lani and Kellerun from a small synthetic virus that was, itself, very lethal; the deadly and much feared weapon used during their centuries-long war killed by disrupting the victim's genetic structure, and had completely devastated the entire population of T'Lani III. So feared was this virus, that even after peace was made and the harvesters were disposed of in a ten-year project, the two governments secretly made plans to assassinate the scientists who worked on the project, fearing what might happen if they were ever remade. |
| Heart virus | Dragon Ball Z | Is a virus that affects one's heart, Goku acquired this virus from an unknown location and was bedridden for days. In an alternate timeline Goku dies from this virus leaving the rest of Earth's special forces to be killed by Androids 17 and 18, who were activated six months after Goku's death. Bulma creates a cure for this virus so that Trunks can take it back in time to save Goku and stop the androids. |
| Head-go-boom-boom-itis | SpongeBob SquarePants ("Squid Baby") | A mental disorder that causes adults who receive a head injury to develop a brain tumor that causes them to act like infants, while still possessing the physical traits of an adult. However, the victim of this disorder must not receive any more blows to the head or the effect will become permanent. |
| Head pigeons | Invader Zim ("Dark Harvest") | A disease that involves a pigeon nesting on one's head. Ms. Bitters also implied the disease was contagious, ordering Zim to leave before it spread to the other skoolchildren, although this seems unlikely. The treatment entails visiting a nurse, or other trained medical professional. Eventually, the pigeon flies away, and the victim is deemed cured. |
| Hepatitis V | True Blood | A virulent strain of hepatitis designed as a biological anti-vampire weapon. Instead of killing them, it causes them to enter a zombie-like state: they lose all sense and become feral and aggressive, feeding and killing constantly. |
| Hinamizawa syndrome | When They Cry, When the Cicadas Cry, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni | A mental disease similar to schizophrenia. It is often referred to as "the curse of Oyashiro sama" by the townspeople who have no knowledge of the disease and instead relate it to a supposed curse on the town by its guardian god, Oyashiro sama. Through history the villagers imposed rules to prevent the populace from becoming "demons" or in reality, stopping the symptoms from progressing. It causes paranoia-inducing hallucinations which progressively grow more threatening as the victim becomes more paranoid. In the case of the character Keiichi Maebara, it caused his friends' humored laughter to seem maniacal, and their tone of voice more threatening and sinister than it was. Eventually, he hallucinated a marker held by Mion Sonozaki to be a syringe, having heard that a murderer in the town was on drugs. This caused him to kill Mion, as well as Rena Ryuuguu, with a baseball bat. In most cases, the result of the disease involves suicide, which Keiichi did by clawing his throat out. Rena also once attempted suicide from the syndrome by cutting her wrist with a knife. It is revealed later in the series that Hanyuu, the incarnation of Oyashiro, was responsible for some of the paranoia, mostly that one is being watched or followed. However, the disease was still mostly psychological. |
| Holovirus | Red Dwarf ("Quarantine") | Discovered, contracted and possibly created by virus researcher Hildeguard Lanstrom, this nasty condition can only be passed between holograms. It can be transmitted by radio and drains the victim's life force while endowing them with powers such as telepathy, telekinesis and hex-vision. The affected person tends to go insane long before their demise. The suggested treatment is a remote link to the hologram disk projection system, a detachable power transfer adapter capable of holding spikes of up to five million volts, and a B47/7RF resistor. Plus confiscation of equally deranged penguin glove-puppet. |
| Hopper virus | Doctor Who ("Orphan 55") | A macroscopic virus able to be transmitted both biologically and through computers. In humans, symptoms include wiggling of the fingers, temporary paralysis of the lower half and hallucinations of bats. In computers, the virus wrecks the hard- and soft-ware. It can be cured in humans by pinching the ear of the infected, causing them to sneeze the virus out, and in computers using a debug script. |
| Hopping cough | The Smurfs | A plague created by the smurfs' enemy Gargamel to use as a biological weapon against them; a victim of this contagious disease coughs violently and leaps very high into the air with each cough. |
| Irumodic syndrome | Star Trek: The Next Generation | A neurological disease caused by a defect in the brain's parietal lobe. It can take years for the illness to develop. In one potential alternate reality, Jean-Luc Picard had this defect and developed the syndrome over a 25-year period. |
| Imminent death syndrome | Mr. Show | A terminal disease in which the affected individual may experience death at any given time, usually within 80–100 years. |
| Jelly measles | Jelly Jamm ("Musical Aurora") | A Jammbonian illness. Symptoms include a pitched-up voice, itchy spots, increased body weight, and a fever so high it causes one to walk on the walls. The only cure is a spoonful of terrible-tasting medicine. |
| Johnny-itis | Johnny Test ("Johnny-itis") | A condition caused by drinking an unnamed fictional substance only described as "an unstable isotope". Symptoms may include red spots on the skin and a purple tongue, followed by violent bloating and then an explosion. |
| Joy virus | The Amazing World of Gumball ("The Joy") | A virus that is caused by a "wonder hug". Its early-to-later symptoms include heavily dilated pupils, the victim hallucinating the world around them as happy and cute, a huge open-mouthed smile, and vibrant rainbow-colored drool, and its final stage causes the victim to die of happiness and be reanimated as a happy zombie-like creature. The virus spread throughout the school via hugging or by touching. Those infected were dubbed "huggers" by the character Miss Simian. The cure was hearing anything depressing like the song "Moonlight Sonata". |
| Jungle worms | iCarly | A disease that causes fever, sweating, and vomiting. The disease itself only appears a few times in the show. Carly contracts the disease several times in her life, however, she is declared a healthy carrier, causing a doctor to advise her to avoid contact with other infected persons and cute boys. She later inadvertently infects someone via an infected glass of water. |
| Kalavirus | 12 Monkeys | Kalavirus, also referred to as M5-10, is a plague that kills 98% of the world population. Although not released directly by the army of the 12 Monkeys, their guiding hand and influence in its creation and release is undeniable. |
| Krabby Patty withdrawal | SpongeBob SquarePants ("Pat No Pay") | A simple hunger-related disorder characterized by someone's stomach shrinking, then going flabby. Patrick was suffering from this, and therefore required eating several Krabby Patties to cure him of this. |
| Lackadaisy-Cathro disease | Ed, Edd n Eddy ("A Case of Ed") | Main symptoms include "rationalising of mundane circumstances, habitual cleanliness and an abnormal fixation to head-wear". Other symptoms include mumbled words and "weakness in the lower extremities". The character Edd was falsely diagnosed with it by his friends as part of a prank. |
| Lazar's disease | Doctor Who ("Terminus") | A leprosy-like disease, the only cure is a dose of radiation. |
| Luck virus | Red Dwarf | A positive viral strain that makes the infected person temporarily lucky. |
| Lurgy | The Goon Show | A disease that causes anyone who catches it to say nothing but "Eeee-yakkaboo!". Lurgy has become British slang for "fictional disease du jour". |
| Macrovirus | Star Trek: Voyager | An airborne pathogen-by-proxy that infects endothermic humanoids with a virus, causing the host to become lethargic and produce more macroviruses until the host wastes away and dies. When some of the bugs invaded Voyager, the EMH was able to synthesize a cure. |
| Mad snail disease | SpongeBob SquarePants ("Once Bitten") | A psychosomatic disease that is supposedly spread by an infected snail's bite. The imagined symptoms are as follows. In the first stage of the disease, toxins enter the body through the bloodstream, moving through the host until the host's body is taken over. Symptoms include: bloodshot eyes, messy pants, untrimmed toenails, ticklish rib cage, and loss of balance. After final stage, the host becomes a "zombie". In the episode "Once Bitten", Gary bites Squidward and most of the citizens of Bikini Bottom. Due to misinformation over the disease, they believe they are zombies and chase SpongeBob until Dr. Gil Gilliams, SDE, SE (snail disease expert and snail expert) informs them that "mad snail disease" is nothing more than an urban legend. Its name is a reference to prion diseases like bovine spongiform encephalopathy and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease. Infected snails show rabies like symptoms, including irritability, foaming at the mouth and aggression, which in reality was caused by a splinter Gary had after Squidward tried to make the area around his house snail proof. |
| Mad zombie disease | The Simpsons ("Treehouse of Horror XX") | Similar to the virus shown on Zombieland this plague is non-canonical in The Simpsons universe but nonetheless appears in "Treehouse of Horror XX". Similarly to Zombieland, it is transmitted through cows. In this segment, Krusty develops a new burger from cannibalistic cows and the effects of this mutate into a virus which turns the victim into a zombie in a matter of seconds. Symptoms include drooling saliva at the mouth, blackened bags under the eyes, pale skin, and psychotic behavior like paranoia. The virus can be transmitted through biting. The only known cure is Bart Simpson, as he ate one of the infected burgers but was immune. |
| Magnus oblivio falicitus, Little Donny disease | Upright Citizens Brigade | Eponymously named for the character Donny. Donny was oblivious to the fact that he had an "enormous penis". |
| Monkeynucleosis | Hey Arnold! | A disease that is caused if a person is touched by a monkey. Helga thinks she had this disease when a monkey trainer's monkey kissed her on the arm. It seems that the disease leads to death (or, as said in the show, "expiration") There are four symptoms: puffy rash where infected, sweaty palms, loss of appetite, and irritability. On the show, monkeynucleosis is said to have been long debunked by modern science. |
| Mono orangosis | Wizards of Waverly Place | A disease Max made up to get sympathy from a girl. It makes the infected person unable to hear, see, taste, smell anything orange. |
| Motaba | The Pretender ("A Virus Among Us") | The episode borrows its center plot disease from the film Outbreak. |
| Narrow urethra | King of the Hill | A medical condition that prevents a male from having a normal sperm count, due to their urethra being smaller than ordinary. It can pass genetically, yet it is known to skip a generation. There are several techniques to assist in temporarily relieving this problem; however, they are not proven to work. |
| Narvik | Helix | The Illaria Corporation were responsible for the development of the Narvik virus which came in two forms: Narvik-A, a fatal virus with no current cure and Narvik-B, turning those infected with the virus into violent, zombie-like vectors who spread the infection to others. Narvik-B is treatable to some degree. |
| Otter pox | PB&J Otter ("Otter Pox") | A fictional disease which Jelly gets on her birthday in the episode of the same name from Season 2, its name comes from a pun of the real disease, chicken pox. |
| Panderitis | Spitting Image | A condition which compels anyone afflicted with it to gradually adopt the appearance and mannerisms of key voting demographics depending on who they were talking to at the time, even changing them into members of different species such as cats. Experimental treatment involving looking into a mirror had the disastrous consequence of turning the patient into a Blob-like entity. Nancy Pelosi was known to have been afflicted. |
| Pararibulitis | Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency | Todd's sister Amanda has pararibulitis, a hereditary disease invented for the show that causes her to experience vivid and painful hallucinations |
| Pentapox | Avatar: The Last Airbender | Symptoms include purple spots on the skin (actually sucker marks left by a purple pentapus). The inhabitants of Omashu pretended to be infected with pentapox to escape the Fire Nation-occupied city. |
| Petrifold regression | Doctor Who ("New Earth") | A condition that causes the affected person to turn to stone (similar to petrification). Unknown origins. |
| The phage | Star Trek: Voyager | A necrotizing plague that affects members of the Vidiian species. Organ transplants are required for survival. Klingon DNA seems to be highly resistant to the phage. It was cured by the Think Tank. |
| Pigeon influenza | Sløborn | This disease causes flu-like symptoms, as well as symptoms of hemorrhagic fever, with its victims hemorrhaging from their eyes, nose, and coughing up blood. It has caused a large-scale epidemic in India and Latin America, later also causing a crisis in Germany, prompting the country's armed forces to step in. |
| Pinkeye | South Park ("Pinkeye") | An infection caused by the accidental combination of embalming chemicals and Worcestershire sauce (originally Dr. Pepper according to Trey and Matt, the creators from show). It results in a zombie apocalypse within South Park. Its initial host is Kenny. To be cured, the initial host must be killed, in a similar fashion to vampire-based folklore. Its symptoms are greenish pale skin, a craving for human flesh, and several other zombie-like behaviors and characteristics. |
| Polaris extremis | Hogan's Heroes ("Up in Klink's Room") | A rare disease found only among Eskimoes. Symptoms are pains in nerve endings in the ends of the fingers, craving for greens in the diet, and articular motory vascular spasms. Hogan faked contracting the disease to gain entry into a Nazi hospital operated by Doctor Ernst Klaus, a specialist in Eskimo diseases, so that he could obtain information on Kriegsmarine battle plans from a deep-cover agent. |
| Progressive aging syndrome | 2030 CE | A widespread disease which limits the human lifespan to thirty years. One character is known to have survived it, albeit in a coma. |
| Protomolecule | The Expanse | A highly-infectious extraterrestrial agent created about two billion years ago that infects life forms upon contact and causes unpredictable changes over time. |
| Proxyglossariasis | Duckman ("Research and Destroy") | A condition which causes someone, while speaking, to occasionally use the next word in the dictionary instead of the one they wanted. |
| Purity | X-Files | An alien virus that thrived underground on Earth, in petroleum deposits. The virus is capable of entering humanoids and assuming control of their bodies. It has sentience and is capable of communicating. It was revealed to be the "life force" of the alien colonists, which they seemingly used to reproduce their kind, as well as infect other alien races in order to conquer the universe. |
| Polywater intoxication | Star Trek | A mutated form of water from the planet Psi 2000 that spreads by perspiration (or small cuts in the skin) and causes its victims to act in a way similar to intoxication. However, the effects do not wear off and eventually cause victims to make foolish and dangerous decisions. Dr. Leonard McCoy isolated an antidote, and once it was administered, patients had to be forced to use willpower to combat the symptoms. Several decades later, the crew of new Enterprise is infected by what seems to be the same disease. In this instance, it is spread by mere touch and is able to infect Data, an android. While Commander Riker learns about the previous incident from the ship's records, McCoy's cure proves ineffective this time, Dr. Crusher believing it may be mutated. She modifies the old antidote into a new one that cures the affliction and administers it to the crew. |
| Random Pavarotti disease | Rex the Runt | A condition that causes the victim to randomly sing operatic tunes, à la Luciano Pavarotti. The character Vince develops this after swallowing an experimental tablet, and has it for the rest of the show. |
| Rat flu | Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ("Down with the Sickness") | A flu-like disease that can be caught both by and from rats, including Splinter. It starts out with realistic flu symptoms including its first stage being a fever, and then progresses through more fictional nonsensical stages until the infected victim recovers after the seventh (a submissive suggestible stage which Leo insists on being called the "must say yes" stage): "wild rat man" – the infected victim turning feral; "captain cuddle cakes" – the victim becoming a cuddle bug; "ninja supreme" – the victim becomes a skilled ninja and hunts others down; "karaoke love songs" – the victim sings romantic karaoke in a tone-deaf way; "fanfiction" – the victim acts out a favorite fantasy. The disease spreads either physically or, in stages 5 and 6, orally. |
| Re-vitiligo | The Boondocks | A disease that turns a white person's skin black over time. Uncle Ruckus claims to have it, though every flashback in which he appears features him as black as he is from 2005 to 2008. He regards Michael Jackson as a "lucky bastard", as his skin turned from black to white. |
| Red flu | The Last Ship | A virus that wipes out over 80% of the world's population, leaving the crew of an unaffected U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer, the fictional USS Nathan James (DDG-151), to find a cure, stop the virus, and save humanity. |
| Rigellian fever | Star Trek ("Requiem for Methuselah") | A disease originating from the Rigel system, the only known cure for which is the rare mineral ryetalyn. |
| Rooze | Star Wars: Droids | A deadly germ used by forces of the Galactic Empire during the Maavan conflict. Victims die in three days. It will not spread as fast if the victim lies still and calm. Symptoms include coughing, shortness of breath, and temporary disappearance of extremities. After three days, a victim simply vanishes. Governor Koong of Tawntoom uses an aerial form of the virus to devastate the rebellious province of Umboo, but a leak in his ship's containers results in him becoming infected. Umboo healer Nilz Yomm devises a cure, but Koong dies of the virus after his deal with the Empire falls through. Kobaks are immune to the disease. |
| Sexual magnetism virus | Red Dwarf | A positive viral strain that makes the infected person irresistible to the opposite sex. |
| Shanti virus | Heroes | A virus that only affects individuals with superhuman abilities or powers, deactivating those powers and slowly killing the infected. At least one strain exists which affects humans without superhuman powers, which is shown to have killed 93% of the world population in a possible future. |
| Singeritis | Noonbory and the Super 7 ("Singeritis!") | A condition that causes its victims to sing everything that comes out of their mouths. |
| Slemmel's disease | The Day Today | A brain virus that primarily causes loss of the ability to read, but can also impact motor coordination. It was reported that 22 UK government ministers had become afflicted with the disease. |
| Smurfy pink plague | The Smurfs | Individuals with this rare disease experience pink, itching rashes; if untreated, the disease causes high fever, weakness, and eventually death. While the disease presumably does exist, the outbreak was fraudulent, caused by Jokey Smurf – using pink paint on the other smurfs – in an attempt to bolster Dabbler Smurf's confidence as he tried to be a doctor. |
| Sneezles | Blaze and the Monster Machines | A sickness that Monster Machines catch that makes them sneeze uncontrollably. Can be cured with Gabby's medicine oil. |
| Space mumps | Red Dwarf ("Justice") | An unsightly, disfiguring ailment that swells the affected person's head with red and yellow mucus. The resulting impression is that, on a double date with the Elephant Man, John Merrick would be the looker. Suggested treatment: After approximately three weeks the swelling will burst – so maybe an umbrella for those in the vicinity? |
| Spectrox toxaemia | Doctor Who ("The Caves of Androzani") | A fatal condition caused by touching the raw form of spectrox, a residue from the saliva of bats found on the planet Androzani Minor, that contained a chemical similar to nitrogen mustard. The lifespan of the affected person is then reduced to between two and three days; symptoms include a rash and/or cramp, followed by spasms, paralysis and finally thermal death point. The only known cure was the milk of the queen bats. |
| Spiderpox | The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy ("Spidermandy") | A disease that can be spread to humans from spiders and once they have it, they will become highly aggressive spider-like creatures with human heads sporting the spots seen in spider victims and they will become very hostile towards others. The cure is magic spider venom. |
| Spontaneous dental hydroplosion | The Office ("Health Care") | A disease that makes one's teeth turn into liquid and then drip down one's throat. |
| Squid's disease | SpongeBob SquarePants ("Squiditis") | A disease invented by Squidward so he did not have to go to work. SpongeBob takes the fake disease literally over the course of the episode. |
| The suds | SpongeBob SquarePants ("Suds") | The suds is an illness that only sponges can catch, causing constant sneezing of bubbles and whitened skin tone. It is essentially a common cold. The suds can be cured by washing the sponge and using it to clean various things, as shown in the episode "The Suds". |
| Super AIDS | South Park | A disease invented by Mr. Stotch to scare Butters from being grounded. |
| Super diarrhea | American Dad! | Francine experienced this disease while on a good-will mission to India. |
| TBA | Arrested Development | Standing for "to be announced", this disease was fabricated by the Bluth family in order to explain the acronym "TBA" being advertised as the reason for their annual fundraiser after they failed to decide on a cause, in order to go ahead with the fundraising anyway. Symptoms were implied to include psychotic mania based on a video they claimed to depict a young boy suffering from the disease. |
| Thornburg virus | Psych ("Death is in the Air") | A virus whose symptoms include headache, weakness, and bleeding from the eyes. |
| Thripshaw's disease | Monty Python's Flying Circus ("E. Henry Thripshaw's Disease") | E. Henry Thripshaw's disease causes a person to says words in the wrong order, or sometimes says the wrong words.[18] |
| Three Stooges syndrome | The Simpsons | Incredibly rare condition where the individual experiences every disease known to man (including diseases that are biologically impossible for the specific victim due to gender or age) and only survives because they all cancel each other out. Mr. Burns is the only known person with the condition. |
| Tooba-achoobas | Noonbory and the Super 7 ("Tooba-Achooba!") | Plant-based illness similar to a cold, but with the bizarre side effect of the affected person losing their superpowers until cured. |
| Torsonic polarity syndrome (TPS) | South Park ("How to Eat with Your Butt") | A genetic condition which causes humans to be born with a set of buttocks over their facial organs. Over 11 people worldwide are affected of this condition. |
| Toxic junk food syndrome | The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy ("Billy's Growth Spurt") | A condition Billy had developed from eating too much junk food. The only symptom of this to be shown is profuse vomiting. Toxins from the disease developed into a parasite as a side effect of a home remedy from Grim's grandmother that he suggested would have cured Billy, the parasite eventually turning into a miniature version of Billy. This in turn was intended to be cured by "Heebee Jeebee Juice", also made by Grim's grandmother, though the parasite detached itself from Billy before Grim and Mandy could make Billy drink it, in which case the parasite had to be tricked into drinking it to be destroyed. |
| Tree-rush | One Piece | A virus which had almost destroyed the Shandian Tribe 400 years ago. The disease causes black spots to appear all over the victims body and eventually results in death. The disease was cured by Montblanc Norland by using a substance known as connie from the kona tree. |
| Tarellian virus | Star Trek: The Next Generation ("Haven") | A deadly and believed incurable plague that was believed to have completely wiped out the Tarellian species until a ship holding survivors was discovered. Details are unknown, but even brief contact causes infection, resulting in any known infected areas being interdicted. |
| The Rain | A virus created by Apollon. It was intended as a cure for cancer, but later it was used as a deadly bioweapon, wiping out the population of Denmark and South Sweden. It seemingly causes seizures with convulsions and vomiting, and after that, an infected person dies, though not immediately. The virus was present in the rain for six years, but later the rain became safe again. In Season 2, it is mentioned that the virus constantly mutates. It is now visualized as some sort of a black gas; it can infect plants and trees. Hosts, such as Rasmus and Sarah, have a connection with the infected plants, and the hosts can release the virus upon being irritated, angered, scared, or if there is a threat to the virus. The virus is in symbiosis with the host, so if a host is cleared of the virus, it will die. | |
| Turtle pox | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles ("The Making of Metalhead") | A disease the turtles have in that episode.[19] |
| Tumorsyphilisitisosis | Family Guy, ("If I'm Dyin', I'm Lyin'") | A fictional disease, the symptoms of which include the growth of extra nipples. It was made up by Peter to defraud a charity organization. |
| Uromysitisis poisoning | Seinfeld ("The Parking Garage") | A condition that occurs when one doesn't relieve themselves. If said person doesn't relieve themselves, they will die. |
| Vegimal pox | Octonauts ("The Mimic Octopus") | An illness specific to the Vegimals' species. The symptoms are red spots, sneezing, and bouncing. The cure is red algae. |
| V virus | Bakugan: Battle Planet | The V virus is able to infect humans, Bakugan, and Core Cells and turn them into pure evil. Humans emit a dark, shadow-like aura, red eyes, and an unbearable desire for destruction. Bakugan are either completely covered in blobs of the V virus or emit a dark aura and partially covered in V virus blobs, loose control of themselves, and are willingly to obey Tiko. Core Cells will turn from gold to dark violet, therefore turn said Core Cell into a faster way to transmit the V virus. |
| Wildfire virus | The Walking Dead | A viral disease of unknown origin. When a human is infected with wildfire, the disease will infect all cells and lay dormant until the host dies. After the victim's clinical death, the host will be reanimated and exhibit zombie-like behavior. However the disease will only activate lower brain function, mostly those controlled by the brain-stem, where feeding and motor functions are controlled. The host becomes a violent, mindless cannibal, and can infect other people with the active agent of the wildfire virus by biting or scratching, eventually resulting in the clinical death of the host. The symptoms that occur before the victim's clinical death include fever, headache, fatigue, confusion, hallucinations and paralysis. The disease has a very short incubation period of around 48 hours. The disease leads to society's collapse and results in a world stricken by a zombie apocalypse. |
| Worry warts | The Smurfs | This disease, contracted by Papa Smurf in one episode, is caused by extreme stress. Its symptoms include ugly green warts and the inability to make decisions. To cure the malady, a victim must speak a short incantation while touching the horn of a wart monger, which cures the decision-making problem completely and transfers the warts to the wart monger. |
| Xenopolycythemia | Star Trek ("For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky") | The USS Enterprise's chief medical officer, Dr. Leonard McCoy, is diagnosed with this disease, which is rare, incurable, and fatal. A cure is eventually found (same episode) by the Enterprise's first officer/science officer, Spock, when he finds vast amounts of medical knowledge that had been preserved on an ancient Fabrini computer. Xenopolycythemia is also mentioned on Star Trek: Enterprise episode "Judgment" and was used as a ploy against the Klingons when Dr. Phlox claimed that the disease was contagious. |
In video games
[edit]| Name | Source | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Player-controlled diseases | Plague Inc. | A playable pathogenic disease (chosen from a type of pathogen, like viruses or bacteria) that is capable of wiping out all of humanity. Symptoms and abilities of the player pathogen can be selected to enhance infectivity, severity and lethality. Certain abilities also include drug resistance, to avoid being eliminated by AI-controlled cure research while wiping out humanity. |
| The affliction, the Canthan plague | Guild Wars | A disease that spread in Cantha, causing those affected to become hulking, aggressive, pained creatures known as "the afflicted". It affects humans, cattle, and various animals in a menagerie. The affected were initially believed to be contagious, but this was later found out to be false. |
| Ancient virus | Resident Evil series | A rare viral strain found in queen ant genes. It was discovered by Alexia Ashford, while she was studying ants. When combined with the progenitor virus, it creates the powerful T-Veronica virus. Probably the control power of it is due to the ancient virus. |
| Angel toxicosis | Tales of Symphonia | The name given by Raine Sage to symptoms of cruxis crystal parasitism. Causes victim to eventually lose ability to taste, sleep, cry, feel pain, and talk. Also increases the victim's hearing, strength and sight abilities, as well as eliminating the need to eat and sleep. In early beginnings it allows the victim to gain crystal-like wings and fly until the disease is destroyed. The final stage of this diseases causes the victim to give up their heart and memory, and ultimately their life. The disease lasts for an unknown time, those affected are slowly "given" the symptoms via blessings of a person with a mounted cruxis crystal. A major example is Collette, one of the eight protagonists of the game. |
| Atma virus | Digital Devil Saga | A mystical, noncommunicable virus which marks its carriers with a tattoo-like mark somewhere on their bodies. Carriers who are immune to Cuvier syndrome can transform into a demonic reflection of their inner personalities, referred to as Atma. However, everyone with the virus feels an insatiable hunger for the flesh of other carriers. If this hunger is resisted for too long, the carrier will eventually enter an irreversible state of mindless bloodlust, losing the ability to return to human form. |
| Asmodeus | Terranigma | Many ages before Ark's adventure to the surface of the world, the previous generations of humanity were decimated by an airborne virus with an estimated mortality rate of 90%. The virus was named by Dr. Beruga who was able to synthesize a vaccine of 80% effectiveness for it. Asmodeus was later utilized as a bio-weapon to completely depopulate a city, save for one child survivor who was seemingly unaffected and hid underground. |
| Blacklight virus | Prototype | The blacklight virus "plugs in" and activates the junk DNA in a target, causing biological changes that create (and recreate) a sentient mind inside the infected creature. It acts by affecting the protein encoding regions of the promoter introns in each cell. As a retrovirus, it contains both RNA and the reverse transcriptase enzyme, allowing it to insert its own genetic codes into living cells. It enters, re-purposes and changes the cell, replicating previously dormant non-coding segments of DNA. More often than not, these changes are too drastic and 99.99% of subjects die from massive organ failure and cell saturation. However some variants have yielded other beneficial results; endowing the infected organisms with incredible superhuman genetic prowess, that greatly increase their natural abilities to levels far exceeding human capability. |
| Blight | Dragon Age | The blight disease is a kind of corruption spread by the evil Darkspawn. The disease corrupts all living organisms which either go mad, develop physical afflictions, and/or perish outright. The longer an infected creature "lives", the more it will manifest hair loss, aggressive or even rabid behavior and numerous deformities, protrusions, boils and sores. |
| Cariappa-Muren disease (CMD) | Neurocracy | A transmissible spongiform encephalopathy spread primarily by consuming contaminated farmed Atlantic bluefin tuna. The pandemic spread of CMD from 2034 to 2040 led to the widespread adoption of neural colloids, a form of implantable microelectrode array, that detect chemical signatures of CMD to allow for rapid diagnosis and containment. |
| Chimeran virus | Resistance: Fall of Man | A virus introduced to Earth by alien invaders known as the Chimera. The Chimeran virus mutates the DNA of infected humans, transforming them into various entities composed of a mixture of human, Chimeran, and animal DNA, in order to create an army of modified soldiers to fight for their cause. |
| Chronic angelus crystallus inofficium | Tales of Symphonia | A progressive disease caused by a cruxis crystal mounted upon a key crest. The wearer's body gradually crystallizes, starting with the skin, into the same substance that forms exspheres. When the crystallization reaches the internal organs, the affected individual perishes. |
| Chrono-displasia | League of Legends | A mystical disease that grants immortality but detaches the affected person's consciousness from the present time, making their mind drift through time, from any point they have already lived to the present, unable to impact the events which unfold. |
| Corprus | The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind | Corprus causes incredible mutations in humanoids, but it is an almost non-communicable disease. People infected with blight are often sent to a special institution called the Corprusarium, which was made for researching corprus. Corprus is caused by the volcanic ash that emanates from Red Mountain, but, as a positive side effect, grants 100% disease immunity. The only known antidote is proven to destroy corprus, but ends up killing the victim as well. However, the player is able to take the antidote without any adverse effects, presumably because they are the reincarnation of Nerevar. |
| Cordyceps brain infection (CBI) | The Last of Us | A mutated form of the Cordyceps fungus known as cordyceps brain infection that infects the United States in 2013, causing humans to transform into cannibalistic monsters known as the infected. The fungus destroys most of civilization over the course of 20 years, leaving 60% of humanity either infected or dead, with the surviving human population either living in heavily policed quarantine zones, isolated communities or nomadic groups. The infected beings are split between four categories depending on how long they were infected for: runners – fast, irritable and hostile, caused within 1–2 days of being infected; stalkers – fast, aggressive and stealthy, caused within 1 week to 1 month of being infected; clickers – despite being blind, they use echolocation to locate enemies and are also strong, caused within 2–4 years of being infected; and bloaters – also blind and use echolocation, they are also armored, powerful and extremely aggressive, caused within 10 years of being infected. |
| Corrupted blood | World of Warcraft | Initially contracted from fighting Hakkar, the god of blood, in the dungeon of Zul'Gurub. Highly infectious, with an incubation period of two seconds and can infect any person in the immediate area. Referred to by players as "the Plague", "Hakkar's SARS" or "WoW AIDS" for a major outbreak of the virtual plague in the game due to a design oversight. |
| Creeping derangea | Advance Wars: Days of Ruin | An artificial virus that is revealed to be a failed bio-weapon created by Dr. Caulder to test the extent of Intelligent Defense Systems technology. Due to its inherent flaw of photophobia, creeping derangea is only able to thrive when the sun was effectively blocked out by the vast amounts of dust that were kicked up into the troposphere and stratosphere by the apocalyptic meteor impact events. The virus is initially only able to infect those under the age of 20 but a new strain is somehow introduced that can infect older hosts over time. Symptoms include headaches, paranoia, and a black diamond on the skin called "the mark". It causes flowers to grow inside a person and break out of the skin. A beautiful, albeit excruciatingly painful, way to die. Its scientific name is Endoflorescens terribilis. It is also known as the creeper and the green thumb. |
| C-virus | Resident Evil series | A further evolved version of the T-virus. Developed by Neo-Umbrella, it is responsible for creating the highly evolved, more intelligent J'avo, as well as being used in the worldwide bio-terrorist attacks. Jake Muller, being descended from Albert Wesker, is resistant to the disease. Because of this, Jake is seemingly being hunted by Ada Wong and her agents.[20] |
| Cuvier syndrome | Digital Devil Saga 2 | Caused by exposure to corrupted sunlight, this noncommunicable disease petrifies the bodies of its victims, literally turning them to stone. The rate of petrification seems to be based on the level of sunlight exposure: one victim in full sunlight attempted suicide, but was unable to pull the trigger before being petrified. Carriers of the Atma virus are immune. |
| Desert herpes | Wasteland | A sexually transmitted disease that the player's character contracts if he sleeps with the three-legged prostitute he meets in the game. |
| Despair disease | Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair | A pathogen created by Monokuma in order to drive the students into paranoia and irritability. Its effects depend on the person it infects: Nagito Komaeda's symptoms caused him to impulsively lie, Akane Owari became a coward, Ibuki Mioda became emotionless and gullible, and it caused Mikan Tsumiki to remember the events prior to having her memory erased. The disease wore off once there was another victim in the killing game. |
| Diathronitis | Larn | Afflicts daughter of player character; serves as primary motivation for game play. |
| Dire AIDS | South Park: The Stick of Truth | A form of AIDS that causes minor health drain when the player's turn begins. Its contracted by being hit by the physical attacks of wildlife in Canada. Going to the hospital in Canada can "cure" the player (turning it into normal AIDS, which has no in-game effect), but an unlockable achievement requires the player to defeat the final boss while infected. |
| Doll syndrome | .hack//G.U. | A mysterious medical condition in which a person falls into a completely unresponsive state. Doll syndrome is in fact a physical side effect to an infection by AIDA. Salvador Aihara tries to do an undercover investigation regarding doll syndrome in especially young children for his show Online Jack. |
| Eleazar | Genshin Impact | A chronic, once incurable, disease specific to the nation of Sumeru. It is a manifestation of the withering caused by forbidden knowledge. Symptoms include dark, hardened scales growing on one's body, numbness in affected areas, and fatigue. As it progresses, patients have nerve damage as the scales develop into ulcers and dead tissue. It is suggested that some are born with the disease and that it is related to elemental energy. |
| Element 115 | Call of Duty: Online, Call of Duty: Black Ops | Element 115 was used to create the zombies as one of its side effects was the reanimation of dead cells. The zombies were to be used as super-soldiers by the Nazis. After creating them, the Nazis realized that they were uncontrollable and would lead to mankind's destruction. Can be combined with Nova 6 to create dirty bombs. |
| Shiva I-VII | Fallen Earth | The SHIVA virus, or at least SHIVA I, is hinted to be an airborne virus with a quick infection exposure time, and therefore has qualities much like a modern chemical weapon. Overall the SHIVA virus appears as seven distinct forms, with naming conventions of SHIVA I through SHIVA VII, with the seventh version being mostly non-lethal. The virus is named after Shiva, the Hindu god of death due to the dance-like convulsions that it causes its victims |
| The filth | The Secret World | A biological weapon willed into existence by the Dreamers in their attempts to free themselves from captivity, it manifests in a variety of forms, including poisonous gas, parasitic fungi, radio waves, and even words. The most common variant takes the form of a viscous black fluid. Exposure to the filth results in nightmares, respiratory difficulties, paranoia, delusions, violent behavior, and eventual insanity; mutations gradually set in, resulting in victims manifesting glowing red eyes, tentacles, and exuding filth from their skin. Affected individuals ultimately fall under the influence of the Dreamers and are devoted either to releasing them from their prisons or continuing the spread of the disease. Further mutations may occur following this stage, and more exotic forms of the filth can result in more unusual symptoms, one rare case transforming the victim into a disembodied intelligence migrating between infected individuals. No cure exists. |
| Flood parasite | Halo | The flood parasite is depicted in the Halo franchise as a parasitoid fungus-like pathogen that mutates infected hosts into creatures similar to zombies. Depending on the size or condition of the host's body, the flood will either uses the host as-is to pursue new victims, or break it down to create "pure forms" from its biomass. |
| Forced evolutionary virus (FEV) | Fallout | Originally known as the Pan-Immunity Viron Project, FEV, along with radiation, is responsible for many mutations in the wastelands. The most visible of these are the super mutants, former humans granted incredible strength and endurance as result of being infected. Exposure to the virus is also known to be fatal in many cases. FEV serves as a major plot element in Fallout, Fallout 2 and Fallout 3. Super mutants also appear in Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4. |
| FOXDIE | Metal Gear Solid | FOXDIE is a virus responsible for killing people with certain genetic markers via cardiac arrest. FOXDIE is given to protagonist Solid Snake by Dr. Naomi Hunter, only it is engineered to go off at an indeterminate time. FOXDIE was also the cause of death of Liquid Snake, Decoy Octopus (impersonating DARPA chief Donald Anderson), and the ArmsTech president. |
| Frenzy virus | Monster Hunter 4 | The frenzy virus is an infectious disease originating in monsters Gore Magala and Shagaru Magala. It is transmitted through the air via black mistlike particles, or through contact with an infected specimen. Symptoms of the frenzy virus in monsters include heightened aggression, increased physical prowess, and a significantly shortened lifespan. In rare cases, a sufficiently powerful monster can overcome the virus. Such monsters are referred to as apex monsters, and they obtain a strengthened version of the benefits of the virus without the main drawbacks. Player controlled hunters can also be infected, which gives them a limited amount of time before the virus activates and temporarily removes their natural regeneration. It also makes attacks from Gore Magala, Chaotic Gore Magala (a Gore Magala that has not properly shed its skin and become Shagaru Magala) Shagaru Magala, or a frenzied monster much more lethal than normal. If a hunter manages to show enough aggression before this activation occurs, they overcome the virus, avoiding all negative effects and gaining a short-term increase in physical ability. |
| G-virus | Resident Evil series | A mutagenic pathogen which causes the host to become a big, constantly evolving, practically unstoppable killing machine, with exceedingly high attack power and immense vitality, in addition to the ability to regenerate and mutate so quickly the carrier virtually loses its mortality. The purified virus can be injected directly into the host, or a mutated host can implant a small larvae, called a G-embryo into another host. The latter mode of transmission is most successful when the host and the new victim are genetically similar. The virus would later be merged with the T-virus by Umbrella scientists in an attempt to balance the G-virus' rapid evolution with the T-virus' stability, creating an extremely dangerous, electromagnetic-capable variant called the T+G virus. |
| Gagne | Michigan: Report from Hell | An experimental bioweapon that was developed in a consortium by the ZaKa Conglomerate, the U.S. government, and the U.S. military. It is a mutagenic virus that can be transmitted in the air and by contact with body fluids. Gagne takes the form of a thick fog that has covered the entirety of Chicago, Illinois, and is causing animals and people to horrifically transform into grotesque monsters with large maws that can spawn leech-like larvae. |
| Gangliated utrophin immuno latency toxin (GUILT) | Trauma Center | A series of seven parasitic pathogens created by the medical-terrorist group Delphi. The disease is labeled as a bacteria, virus, or tumor in-game, but exhibits traits related to parasites. During in-game sequences where the player operates on patients, GUILT infections are normally shown as a pseudo-sentient core that attacks the patient from within, using lacerations, tumors, and other ailments. Individual strains are named after Greek days of the week (Kyriaki, Deftera, Triti, Tetarti, Pempti, Paraskevi, Savato), the only exception being the eighth strain, called "bliss", which appears only in a cutscene. Neo-GUILT strains, appearing in a later game, introduce four more strains (Nous, Bythos, Sige, Aletheia). Some GUILT survivors were also inflicted with latent, non-infectious GUILT infections, dubbed PGS (post-GUILT syndrome). |
| Genophage | Mass Effect | A biological weapon created by the Salarians and deployed against the krogan species, designed to dramatically reduce the normal birth rate by infecting the species with genetic mutations. The plague causes most krogan pregnancies to end in stillbirth, with most fetuses never even reaching that stage of development. |
| Gray death | Deus Ex | A global plague engineered using nanotechnology within a universal constructor by Majestic-12, the gray death virus is actually a hybrid (cyborganic) disease of biological and mechanical structures. It is based on the adverse and ultimately lethal effects of nanotechnology on an unmodified human body. Named the gray death because of the gray patches of discolored scar tissue that cover its victims' skins, if and when the disease is cured. Symptoms include the aforementioned discoloration of the skin, coughing, physical pain and death. |
| Hyper-evolutionary virus | StarCraft | The hyper-evolutionary virus is a retrovirus produced by Zerg queens. It is used to mutate "lesser" creatures into Zerg warrior breeds. Only a small percent of humanity is fully compatible, who retain personality, intelligence, and psionics. Others mutate into living bombs, utterly dominated by the Overmind. It has a re-animation side effect. It is transmissible through fluid transfer only, much like Solanum. |
| Harran virus | Dying Light | A previously mysterious rabies-like pathogen, the Harran virus was spread within the city of Harran (likely based in Turkey) to epidemic proportions, placing the city under quarantine. As a result, many victims of the virus are initially turned into aggressive and athletic infected (called "Virals") before decaying into hordes of shambling and cannibalistic infected (called "Biters"). With this said, some of those infected by the virus may mutate into various creatures. Once the sun goes down, the pathogen alters the infected people's motor-coordination and sensory, resulting the sluggish infected turning agile and vicious at night (called "Night Walkers") and mutated inhuman infected (called "Volatiles") with severe muscle exposure coming out only at night to hunt any uninfected survivors. During the night, the infected victim's primary weakness is ultraviolet light, while the infected during the day have no specified weakness. |
| Incuritis | Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney | A rare, but lethal disease, curable only through the use of a medicine made from the Borginian cocoon. The cure is very difficult to make, and if made incorrectly, it is a deadly poison, and thus the exportation of such a cocoon is illegal. The chief justice's son has the disease. |
| The infection | Hollow Knight | The disease causes bright orange boils to appear on the victim's skin, as well as turn their eyes and blood a rich orange. The first symptom of being infected is having a dream about the Radiance, a long forgotten god, and it greatly increases the strength and physical size of the victim, but removes all conscious thought, making the victim mindless and violent. Those who resist the infection merely become consumed by it more and more. Some characters intentionally take in the infection, as they see the exchange of free will for increased strength beneficial to themselves. Along with plaguing the minds of millions of victims, it can also reanimate corpses and manifest itself in the form of floating, single-celled organisms, though the true extent of the infection's abilities is never properly seen. It is stated that the infection, and by consequence infected victims and corpses, have a sickly sweet taste, and areas heavily affected by the disease will have a thick air about them. The infection is easily spread and caused the downfall of Hallownest, the kingdom in which the game takes place. |
| Kepral's syndrome | Mass Effect 2 | A degenerative respiratory disease unique to Drell, occurring as a result of their transition from their desert homeworld of Rakhana to the Hanar ocean homeworld of Kahje; cumulative exposure to moisture results in a condition that erodes their capacity to absorb oxygen into their lungs, eventually resulting in death. It is noncommunicable, and there is currently no known cure, though its progression can be slowed through exposure to warm, arid environments. |
| Kharaa bacterium | Subnautica, Subnautica: Below Zero | Kharaa is an alien bacterium discovered by the Precursor Race during the exploration of an unknown planet. It seems to have completely taken over Planet 4546B. It is described in the Degasi PDAs as "part of the ecosystem", with further statements that the Degasi survivors were infected at some point – as stated by Bart Torgal while discussing the flu-like symptoms the crew was experiencing. Early on, the player's PDA and Lifepod will make note of the high levels of bacterial infection in the water. The PDA notes that kharaa is unlike any infection thus discovered in human history, suggesting that kharaa's biological design is far more drastic compared to diseases such as Yersinia pestis. The PDA estimates that kharaa incubates in two weeks and quickly kills its host after it reaches a substantial infection level. It accomplishes this by shutting down the immune system (already making the infected host susceptible to other diseases) and causing genetic mutation to the host's DNA, and causing alterations to the body structure, eventually leading to a total shutdown of the organism due to its inability to keep functioning properly. |
| Las plagas | Resident Evil series | A parasitic organism which can infect a variety of hosts, including humans. It has the ability to control its host's behavior, inducing a hive-like mentality among the infected and extreme hostility towards uninfected individuals. The infected retain most of the characteristics of humans such as fine motor skills as seen through their use of simple weapons such as scythes and axes, and more complicated weapons such as chainsaws and chainguns. They are seen to obey "queen" parasites, much like ants. |
| Litterbug | Zoo Tycoon 2 | A disease that affects humans and extinct animals. Animals that are affected grow tired quickly. It is caused by trash and is cured by saguaro cactus, boxelder, and monkey puzzle trees. |
| M2448 virus, freak virus | Crackdown 2 | The M2448 virus was created by Catalina Thorne, the leader of Cell, during her time as a medical student working for the Agency. She conducted secret experiments using the virus but was discovered by the Agency and was kicked off the Agency-sponsored medical program. She was enraged by this and wanted revenge on the Agency because it apparently ruined her life. To get her revenge she offered free vaccinations to the people of Unity Heights (formerly the Corridor), she was actually vaccinating her victims with the M2448 virus which tuned them into Freaks. The virus spread across Unity Heights very quickly and soon makes its way into the two other boroughs of Pacific City. |
| Manticore | Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare | A bio-weapon that was devised to target specific genotypes, and would kill anyone not in the Atlas database. Named after the Persian mythical creature. |
| Marker: DNA sequence | Dead Space | The human colony on planet Aegis discovered an alien Marker, which contained complex and powerful DNA sequences that enabled dead cells to revive. Unfortunately, one of the scientists working on the DNA sequence dropped the dish containing the engineered cells. The cells eventually infected one scientist, which then led to altered mutations on the human body. |
| Maverick virus | Mega Man X | A virus that affects Reploids. Causes violent insanity and is passed by touch. Victims can sometimes retain their intellect. Combination with the intelligence of the Maverick Hunter Sigma created a variant form called the Sigma virus, which is airborne. Mega Man X can be harmed, but not mentally suborned, by this virus. Zero is actually strengthened by exposure, due to his unique status. The Zero virus is a further evolved, faster version. |
| MTamashiro-66 virus | Halo | MTamashiro-66 virus (often shortened to MTa66) as depicted in the Halo book series is a virus that affects the nervous system of several species of canine. |
| NE-alpha parasite | Resident Evil series | The NE-alpha, or nemesis alpha parasite has an immunity to the T-virus, and is used to protect the higher brain functions of bio-organic weapons (BOWs). However, if the BOW is incompatible with the parasite, they die inside of twenty minutes. If they are compatible, however, the parasite acts as a second brain, taking over the functions of the T-virus ravaged host's brain. The host increases in size and strength; and become hardy enough to survive multiple gunshot wounds. The parasite's tentacles become threaded throughout the host's entire body; and can be utilized as a weapon. |
| NE-beta parasite | Resident Evil series | The NE-beta (nemesis beta) parasite is an evolved form of the NE-alpha parasite. The parasite is capable of bonding to all BOWs, from zombies to T-103 super soldiers. The parasite has an insectoid appearance, as opposed to the octopus-like form of its predecessor. However, it is prone to decapitating its host, rendering them blind and deaf. |
| Necroa virus | Plague Inc. | A playable zombie disease in the video game Plague Inc. It reanimates the dead and makes them into zombies, which the player can control to attack uninfected regions and anti-zombie task forces. Symptoms include photophobia, psychosis, hypersalivation, polyphagia, cannibalism, and cytopathic reanimation, which makes zombies, although the player can choose what symptoms the disease can afflict on humans. |
| Neurax worm | Plague Inc. | A parasitic worm that burrows into the brain, which controls the host in everything they do by altering the production of various neurotransmitters. The player can make the worm kill everyone by suicide or, make the whole worship the worm thinking it is their god. Symptoms include insanity, mania, memory loss, coma, adoration, devotion, and transcendence (which causes the humans to worship the worm as their eternal god by overdosing them with oxytocin and vasopressin). |
| Neuro-immuno deficiency syndrome (NIDS) | Sonic the Hedgehog | A rare, incurable, and fatal disease. Shortly after Professor Gerald Robotnik refused GUN's request for him to discover the secret to immortality, his granddaughter Maria contracted NIDS, causing Gerald to reconsider and begin Project Shadow. The cure was never found, despite Gerald's success at creating the ultimate life form (with assistance from the alien warlord Black Doom in exchange for delivering him the Chaos Emeralds). Maria later died of a gunshot wound during GUN's extermination of all involved in the project. |
| Nova 6 | Call of Duty franchise | Appearing in Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty: Black Ops III, and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War, Nova 6 was originally developed by Nazi Germany during the course of World War II by Friedrich Steiner and intended for use in V-2 rockets targeted at major capital cities, such as Washington, D.C., and Moscow. It was later seized, refined, and used by the Soviets, as a component of a grand Soviet sleeper-cell plan by Dragovich. Preventing its release is one of the primary aims of Alex Mason and the CIA in the 1960s. |
| Nova gas | Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty: Online | A multiplayer weapon, this is a gas grenade that blurs vision, impairs movement and damages health over time. Using a tactical mask makes one immune to it. |
| Porphyric hemophilia | The Elder Scrolls series | Causes vampirism after an incubation period of three days. Depending on the game and the progression of the disease, negative effects range from taking damage from sunlight to being shunned and/or attacked by friendly NPCs. However, the infected character also gains abilities and skills. |
| Oripathy | Arknights | A widespread terminal and currently incurable disease contracted from contact with raw originium, a fictional mineral of the setting that is central to its industry and provides supernatural powers to those who can wield it. The only consistent symptoms of the disease is the formation of "ore lesions" on the skin, hardening, darkening, and growing, similar to a scab, before crystallizing into originium. It appears that this cutaneous originium formation is not a vector of infection, however, the infected will disintegrate into highly infectious and volatile originium dust upon death. Person-to-person contamination is otherwise known to be very rare. Oripathy is tracked using two markers: the density of originium crystals in the bloodstream, and the assimilation of originium particles by the body's cells. Oripathy can cause a wide range of secondary symptoms ranging from real-world mental disorders, physical disorders, mutations, and disabilities, none of which are consistent across patients. Oripathy is known to either hinder or facilitate the use of originium arts, supernatural abilities using originium as a catalyst, with no consistent cause between subjects. Infected people are subject to discrimination. |
| Pox of LeChuck | Tales of Monkey Island | The pox of LeChuck (also named LeChucken pox in the final episode) is a plague apparent in Tales of Monkey Island that swept across the Caribbean when Guybrush stabbed LeChuck with an enchanted voodoo sword at the Rock of Gelato. This caused LeChuck to be stripped of his voodoo powers, releasing a pandemic that transformed many pirates into green-skinned, foul-mouthed monsters. It also spread to Guybrush's hand, giving it a life of its own (even after being cut off by Morgan LeFlay), as well as infecting his wife, Elaine Marley. The only known cure is La Esponja Grande, which Guybrush embarks on a quest to find after speaking with the Voodoo Lady. |
| Progenitor virus | Resident Evil series | In the back-story of the series, the progenitor virus is the primary virus created by the Umbrella Corporation, a mutagen based on Ebola, with some of its components extracted from strange flowers that bloom underground, seen in Resident Evil 5. Successor viruses include the T-virus, the G-virus, and T-Veronica virus. |
| Phazon madness | Metroid Prime | A virus transmitted by being in close proximity to Phazon. The victim's mind is warped so they can no longer tell friend from foe, and exist only to destroy. Phazon madness is extremely contagious, and it later develops into Phazon fever, wherein the victim gains an obsessive compulsive disorder regarding Phazon. Infected victims can utilize Phazon as a weapon and normally can only be killed by Phazon itself. |
| Pink elephant disease | Zoo Tycoon 2 | A disease that causes elephants and mastodons to turn pink. It is spread through pink pursuit balls and cured with cotton candy. |
| Pokérus | Pokémon | A virus that afflicts Pokémon. Though it is incurable, it has no negative effects, and is in fact helpful. Pokémon with the condition gain double effort values in battle. The Pokémon retains this ability even after its contagious period of 48 hours has passed. Transmission is by proximity in a party, and the 48-hour "clock" is stopped by placing the Pokémon into a PC box. |
| Radical-6 | Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward | Radical-6 was a virus developed by Free the Soul, an apocalyptic cult, to destroy human civilization. A highly infectious virus, it causes the human brain to experience time at a 40% slower rate, and eventually drives its victims to suicide. The global pandemic eventually leads to a desperate (and hinted to be Radical-6 induced) plan to detonate 18 anti-matter generators simultaneously, initiating a nuclear winter. |
| Roboenza | Mega Man 10 | A virus that affects humanoid robots, causing flu-like symptoms and eventually homicidal tendencies. Created and subsequently cured by Dr. Wily. Some theories hold that it is related to the evil energy from Mega Man 8 and the maverick virus from the Mega Man X series |
| Rotten world gas | Lollipop Chainsaw | A poisonous gas from the Rotten World (Hell) which leaks through interdimensional cracks caused by the Necromancer Swan when he cracks open a gate between Earth and Rotten World. This gas leaks through the cracks and kills everybody who inhales it within minutes, shortly reanimating them as psychotic zombies within a short while. It appears the gas is transmittable through bites, and therefore contagious. In hallucinations, the gas is also shown to affect animals. |
| Rustlung/lambency | Gears of War series | A fictional underground substance known as imulsion was refined by the humans of Sera and used as a limitless fuel source. However, unknown to the humans at the time, imulsion was a liquid fungal parasite that invades the host through spores in the imulsion fumes. Miners of imulsion and their families became sick with imulsion-poisoning which would be called rustlung, a pneumonia-like condition that expels rust-colored phlegm. The government attempted to hide and resolve the issue by imprisoning the children sick with rustlung in the New Hope Research Facility in order to cure the disease. However, the scientist in charge, Dr. Niles Samson, went mad and genetically altered the children with the DNA of indigenous creatures from underground, resulting in the creation of the Locust Horde, the main enemy species in the game. The government learned of these unethical experiments and Dr. Niles Samson took them underground to continue his work. While underground, rustlung, later evolving into lambency in which the host becomes possessed by the imulsion, began to overrun the Locust Horde, forcing them to emerge on the surface and wage war against humanity in order to escape the Lambent. All Lambent inherit imulsion's qualities: golden glow in the dark and explosive properties. Rustlung continued to infect the human population, especially during the war against the Locust Horde, in which the imulsion evaporated and polluted the surface with fumes due to bombing the underground. After the humans managed to flood the underground to kill both the Locust and Lambent, the seawater rose the imulsion into the soil and caused a pandemic to occur, infecting both Locust and humans with lambency. Both rustlung and lambency are destroyed, however, when Professor Adam Fenix activates an imulsion countermeasure, which uses targeted levels of radiation to kill cells with imulsion. All imulsion was destroyed and organisms that were infected with imulsion were killed. |
| Sand plague | Pathologic | A lethal, mysterious sickness affecting a small town. It manifests as deathly, skull-shaped clouds that follow the player, and can also be transmitted by touch and by rats. It produces immense pain in those who contract it; alleviating these symptoms in NPCs increases the player character's reputation, but they themselves can get infected. The risk of infection can be reduced through protective clothing or certain medicines, while the disease itself can only be cured through "shmowders", concoctions created by children from old medicines. Infected districts develop blotches of blood and scars on the ground and on the walls of the houses. |
| Scurge | Scurge: Hive | A parasite that can infect biological, technological, or coherent energy systems. It takes about one minute to overwhelm the special filters designed to ward off its infection. |
| Shadow plague | Plague Inc. | A playable, sentient disease tied to vampirism in the game Plague Inc. Its symptoms in humans include increased strength, the urge to bite others, paler skin, hypersensitivity, dark cysts and higher pheromone secretion. It can be spread by one or more player-controlled vampires in addition to transmission among humans. |
| Slimelung | Oxygen Not Included | A respiratory illness contracted from exposure to slime tiles or infected polluted oxygen clouds that inhibits a duplicant's ability to take in air; killing them over eight cycles. Symptoms include green skin, coughing, sneezing, and wheezing. Sneezes in particular can spread the disease by producing 1,000 slimelung germs (although these can only survive in polluted oxygen, rapidly dying in all other atmospheres-including clean oxygen). The pathogen reproduces quickly in polluted oxygen. As slime is said to be a mixture of various types of bacteria, fungus, and algae, it presumably causes slime to grow in the duplicant's lungs. It can be treated with sand pills at an apothecary, or cured with a medical pack consisting of phosphite and balm lilly nectar at a sickbay. |
| Green flu | Left 4 Dead, Payday: The Heist ("No Mercy") | The green flu, commonly referred to simply as the infection, has caused most humans who come in contact with it to change into homicidal, zombie-like beings. Anyone can catch it, but there are few out there who show no symptoms of the virus. They can, however, spread it to whoever comes in contact with them. These carriers seldom realize they are spreading the virus, leaving a path of destruction in their wake. |
| The plague | Mass Effect 2 | The plague is a virus possibly created by the Collectors which infects all species except humans and vorcha, the latter being resistant to any infection, and the former being immediately scapegoated for the spread of the plague and hunted down by local gangs. It results in horrible sores and a bad cough bringing up blood, caused by rapid mutations to the respiratory system. It was being spread through the ventilation system of the slums of Omega by the vorcha under orders of the Collectors but was stopped by Shepard and doctor Mordin Solus, since Omega has no authorities whatsoever and the affected area was simply sealed until everyone would die. |
| The plague of undeath | Warcraft III | The plague is responsible for the entire undead race. It can re-animate dead creatures with a reasonable degree of sentience. However, the creature is usually dominated by the undead command structure, but they can escape from the tyranny of undeath. It also causes the soil beneath and around undead structures to change into a substance known as blight, which is poisonous to most plants. |
| The rat plague | Dishonored | The rat plague killed almost half of the population of the city of Dunwall, the fictional city from Dishonored. Individuals with the rat plague can cure themselves via use of Sokolov's Health Elixir. Once blood comes from the nose or eyes there is no way to be cured. It is also known as the doom of Pandyssia. |
| Rosalia virus | Trauma Team | A rapidly fatal viral hemorrhagic fever that is a fictional member of the Filoviridae family of viruses. The virus was originally found in the blood of Rosalia Rosselini by Cumberland College professor Albert Sartre. Sartre and his son attempted to use the virus to cure all disease, but instead found that it could not be used for positive means. An outbreak of the virus occurred, resulting in the Cumberland College incident, killing an unknown, but large number of bystanders. Sartre fled to Mexico with Rosalia, leaving his son to take the blame. However, Sartre was later inflicted with the virus, causing him to fall to insanity, killing Rosalia. Rosalia's blood was soaked up by nearby Asclepias flowers, which monarch butterflies fed upon, acting as a vector for a second outbreak, centered around Portland, Maine. A variation of the Rosalia virus was encountered once, when one of the Rosalia patients, Naomi Kimishima, also had a pre-existing incurable genetic disease (thought to be related to GUILT). Interactions between the genetic disease and Rosalia gave birth to a "twisted Rosalia" strain, which only one case was known to be documented. |
| Scorched plague | Fallout 76 | A plague caused by Scorchbeasts, giant bat-like mutants created by the Enclave in 2083. Symptoms can include a loss of higher brain function, growths of ultracite protruding from the affected person's skin, and a connection to the Scorchbeast hivemind. People with the plague go through a skin transformation that goes from a charred, blackened appearance to red lesions and the appearance of being flayed alive. Scorched also develop cataracts in the eyes and experience complete hair loss. The plague wipes out most of the residents of West Virginia, save for the player characters/Vault 76 inhabitants. Additionally, all Scorched victims have a set lifespan, at the end of which they stay in a single position until their bodies petrify from the inside out. They retain enough mental faculties to operate smaller firearms and various melee weapons, as well as wear armor for protection. The Scorched are hostile toward anything that they perceive as a threat. |
| SCP-610 | SCP Foundation | A highly infectious skin disease which was first reported by the Russian government in the 1970s. The disease begins as a normal skin disease which irritates the infected person, causing itching and bad skin. But then searing temperatures increase the infection and spread it through the body, causing skin to rot and mutate. Eventually the affected person is covered from head to toe in infectious sores. The affected individual is then declared clinically dead and later reanimates, and will attempt to infect anyone else they encounter. The foundation has been trying to contain this disease, but they may be unsuccessful because of its fast contagion spread. |
| Skull shivers | Borderlands | |
| Stigma | Trauma Center: New Blood | A disease accidentally created by Markus Vaughn and Lloyd Wilkens while performing tests with artificial blood on mice. It is later used as a bioterror weapon by the group Parnassus, and organized crime groups in the United States. It comes in six strains, named after body parts it resembles or attacks (cheir, soma, ops, onyx, brachion, cardia). It appears similar to a parasite, controlled by a central core, and can be particularly mobile. Unlike other pathogens, which store their genetic information in DNA, stigma stores its genetic information in a film-like structure, making it unique among pathogens. Because curing stigma requires culurium, a newly discovered mineral from the fictional country of Culuruma, it becomes necessary to take control of the mines that contain the mineral. |
| Syphon filter | Syphon Filter series | A bio-weapon that can be genetically programmable to terminate specific genotypes, killing only intended victims while leaving non-targeted parties alive. Because it binds with each host's specific DNA, there can not be a universal vaccine, and in order to cure it, one must know the specific genetic lock and key for each strain. |
| T-abyss virus | Resident Evil series | A variant of the T-virus, designed by FBC CEO Morgan Lansdale to show the world the dangers of bio-weapons and increase his own personal power through use of the Veltro terrorist group. The virus crates zombies and bio-organic weapons (BOWs) which are strongly linked with water, and have numerous aquatic features such as tentacles and crab-like shells. It is encountered in the game when the Veltro threaten to infect the world's oceans, hoping to exact revenge for the loss of much of their forces during the bio-terrorist attack on the floating techno-utopia Terragrigia. It is encountered during exploration of three research vessels, where it has transformed the crew and several sea creatures into zombies, mutants and Tyrants. |
| T-Phobos virus | Resident Evil series | A variant of the T-virus originating back in the 1960s as part of the Wesker Project. As named after the god of terror Phobos, the Tyrant Phobos virus creates zombies and BOWs which are triggered through their host's reactions in their mind. If the host experienced enough fear, the virus will mutate quickly. |
| T-Veronica virus | Resident Evil series | A powerful strain of the progenitor virus, created by combining it with a rare retrovirus found in the genetic make-up of ant queens, discovered by unstable scientific genius Alexia Ashford, the result of a cloning experiment. It is encountered in Resident Evil – Code: Veronica, when it is being used by Alexia Ashford in her attempt to take control of the world. She experiments on her father, then on herself; her father is transformed into a terrifying monster, while she, going into hibernation after giving herself a dose of the virus, manages to gain control over it and retain her personality and intelligence. She eventually becomes a dragonfly-like creature who has to be killed by Chris Redfield. It appears again in the Operation Javier section of Darkside Chronicles, where it is being used by Javier Hidalgo to cure his daughter Manuela of an inherited illness. He also tried to cure his wife, but the virus overwhelmed her and turned her into a mutant. Manuela uses her developing powers (similar to Alexia Ashford's abilities before transforming into her insect form) to defeat the mutated Javier, and is then evacuated by Leon Kennedy and Jack Krauser. If Manuela survives at the end of the game, it is said that she is cared for by the US government, but her ultimate fate is left unknown. |
| T-virus, Tyrant virus | Resident Evil series | A highly contagious virus, spread mostly through liquids such as bodily fluids and water, that causes cellular necrosis in humans and other animals, turning them into zombie-like creatures who are difficult to kill. It can easily mutate into other strains, some of which have mutagenic effects on the host. In insects or amphibians, the resulting mutation often involves increased aggressiveness, increased size, and (almost always) the development of poisonous traits. In mammals, the results include aggressiveness, physiological changes of varying degrees, and an extremely increased evolutionary rate. However, it is shown that some humans can bond with the T-virus and its variants and gain heightened speed, strength and strange powers while retaining their personalities, as in the case of Albert Wesker and Alexia Ashford. Variants include the NE-T virus, along with many others. |
| Tarkat | Mortal Kombat 1 | A disease that infects individuals in Outworld, turning them into Tarkatans, disfigured mutants who gradually reverse into a primal and savage state, and can sometimes be fatal. Tarkatans such as Baraka usually present large fanged teeth, spiked protrusions across the body, and large retractable blades in their forearms. Mileena is also infected with Tarkat and is given a serum to suppress its symptoms by Shang Tsung, a sorcerer who utilizes Tarkat in experiments. |
| Technocyte virus, the infestation | Warframe | The technocyte virus mutates both flesh and metal alike. It disfigures and dismembers anybody it infects, turning them into a raging and mindless creature. These infected entities and the virus itself make up a faction known as the Infestation. Notable infested entities include Lephantis, Jordas Golem, and Phorid. The virus can take over things as insignificant as a simple drone or as big as the entire Corpus Obelisk. |
| Tiberium poisoning | Command & Conquer | Tiberium crystals start to grow on a person's skin. These skin crystals eventually force their way through the persons vital organs, killing them. If the infestation is in a certain proportion, the victim mutates into a living bag of rotten skin and organs, called a visceroid. |
| Turbo cancer | Borderlands | |
| Unicornitis | Octodad: Dadliest Catch ("Medical Mess") | A disease made up during a story told by Tommy and Stacy. Symptoms include a bright pink unicorn horn magically sprouting from the forehead, and the ability to fly. The only known cure is to purchase and use a set of jet skis. Notable affected individuals include Patient 203 and Octodad. |
| Uroboros | Resident Evil series | An advanced strain of the progenitor virus, the uroboros virus was created by Albert Wesker, with inadvertent help from Jill Valentine. Exposure to uroboros can lead to one of two things—forced evolution via DNA integration, leading to extremely heightened abilities, or rejection via the virus, leading to the parasitic nature taking over and forming a mass of black, leech-like pustules, which can grow in size if exposed to more organic matters. The only individual known to survive the process was Albert Wesker, which was more than likely due to the fact of his previous exposure to the T-virus. Other beings that took positive mutations from the uroboros virus include the Reapers; cockroaches exposed accidentally to the virus, who then in turn grew largely in size, gained armor-like carapaces and scythe-like appendages, explaining the name. |
| Wailing death | Neverwinter Nights | A bubonic-like plague that infects almost the entire city of Neverwinter. Thought to be just a natural plague, it is later discovered that it was magically created and unleashed upon the city. |
| X-2 virus | BattleTanx, BattleTanx: Global Assault | An extremely deadly virus released in 2001 and further researched in 2006 that killed 99.9% of the world's human female population that did not possess a special psychic ability known as "the edge". Those that were spared were treated with the utmost respect, authority, and loyalty, thereby earning their title of queenlord. |
| Yellow death | 1213 | A deadly virus which contaminated the entire planet Earth and parts of the Tessa Life Orbital. Humans are killed in a short time upon infection, but cloned humans are transformed into killer zombies. When 0916 got a large dosage of the virus he mutated into a yellow, four-armed monster with two retractable spines and tentacles. 1213 however was unaffected by the virus due to a successful immunization to the virus. |
| Twin fever | Metroid Prime | A virus native to Twin Tabula causing double vision. When the twin sight fades, the victim is near death. |
| Pathogens HK & HK1 | Dead Island, Dead Island Riptide, Dead Island 2 | A genetically engineered prion disease that infected an island chain near Papua New Guinea, causing a zombie outbreak. This specific pathogen was named after it was discovered it contained strains of both HIV and kuru. The pathogen was further modified into its HK1 variant, causing the zombie outbreak in Los Angeles, California. Along with standard necrosis and zombification, pathogens HK and HK1 are known to cause horrific mutations in infected individuals. Individuals with O negative blood are immune to HK, while immunity to HK1 is a 1 in 1,000,000 chance. An individual who is immune to HK may not be immune to HK1 and immune individuals can still infect others. |
| Tuurngait virus | Penumbra: Black Plague | The Tuurngait virus is a disease that can affect humans and animals, it was later discovered by the Archaic led by Philip's father Howard LaFresque and his crew members in Greenland. It was later tested and found out that one of its effects is mutation. |
| Nabazov virus | Hitman | A manmade virus engineered to be highly contagious and highly effective. It transfers through air and is capable of creating an epidemic within hours of patient zero's infection. Its lethality rate is 100% unless an infected individual receives a vaccine within five minutes of infection. Infected individuals start experiencing necrosis as their cells rapidly die off until bodily functions cannot be maintained and the host dies. However, the virus cannot live without a host, and rapidly dies if there is no one nearby to infect. |
In role playing games
[edit]| Name | Source | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Amalgamation | Undertale | Applicable to monsters who have "fallen down", the specific wording for those who have recently died. Monsters turn to dust shortly after death, unless if injected with Determination prior to this. In that case, the monster will awaken within a short period before becoming a gloopy, melted form of what they once were. These forms are titled Amalgamates. Their abilities (such as attacks, speech patterns, behavior) become corrupt and sluggish. If multiple Amalgamates are in the vicinity of one another, they will merge and become an unusual new being with combined traits of the originals. Amalgamates are often hostile and will try to harm the player, but cannot be killed, harmed, or reverted into their original forms. Though not technically a disease, it is an uncureable eternal zombification. |
| Blorbs | Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story | A mysterious disease that causes Toads and Goombas to grow large and round rendering them mostly immobile and can make them roll uncontrollably. |
| Free League plague | Planescape | A plague created by the Lady of Pain to keep the swelling numbers of the Free League in check, which grew to an overwhelming size after a conflict called the Great Upheaval amongst the factions, where the Lady of Pain decreed that there could only be fifteen factions in Sigil at one time. Very little is known about this disease, but any member of the Free League stood a chance of becoming infected with it simply by entering Sigil. |
| Goblin fever | Dungeon Adventures #46 ("Goblin Fever") | This disease is a relatively harmless ailment to goblins, orcs, and similar creatures, but it is rare. To humans, it is much deadlier. Having a long incubation period and being highly contagious, an outbreak can start before the first case is detected. The disease causes deterioration of the central nervous system, causing forgetfulness and rapid mood swings. Those affected often become violent, depressed, or even suicidal, eventually lapsing into a coma before dying. |
| Green poison (dollar flu) | Tom Clancy's The Division | A bio-weapon created by Dr Gordon Amherst, as a mean of controlling population. With a strain of dengue, smallpox, swineflu, H1N1, Ebola, hantavirus and Marburg virus. Comparing to the original smallpox virus, not only does it incubate faster, it is also infectious during its incubation period. Due to its rapid mutation, it is extremely difficult for antibodies and drugs to identify the virus and exterminate them as well as creating vaccine to this disease. |
| Human-metahuman vampiric virus (HMHVV) | Shadowrun | A mutagenic retrovirus that achieves its full virulence and power only in a magic-rich environment—such as post-Awakening Earth. The virus itself has existed throughout history and even expressed in very rare instances during the relatively magic-poor Fifth World. When a metahuman's immune system fails to stave off infection, the virus begins to systematically re-shape their auras and genetic code—transforming them into forms reminiscent of the night-stalking monsters of legend. The specific form that the subject takes is dependent on their original genetic form and the strain of the virus they contract. |
| Knahaten flu | The Elder Scrolls | The knahaten flu (also known as the knahaten plague) was one of the deadliest diseases to infect the populace of Tamriel, lasting for 43 years. Though exactly how the disease was introduced is unknown, it started in the swamps of Black Marsh. Argonians, the denizens of Black Marsh, were immune to the disease, leading to speculation about its source, but it did not take long for it to sweep through the rest of the continent. There is no definitive death toll of the disease. However, the flu almost completely destroyed the non-Argonian population of Black Marsh, and killed vast swathes of the population of Tamriel. The exact method of transmission is unclear. Early symptoms of the flu include "general malaise, loss of appetite, and fatigue", followed shortly by aching muscles, sharp pain in the shoulders, chills, and watering eyes. Late-stage symptoms include wracking cough, high fever, and blood flowing out of the nose, eyes and eventually the mouth. Affected individuals rarely survived longer than a few days. |
| Magical diseases | Dungeons & Dragons | The setting has several of varying degrees of lethality, most of them affecting one or more Ability Scores. The most well known are devil chills, cackle fever, filth fever, mummy rot, and slimy doom. |
| Ravenloft viruses | Ravenloft Monstrous Compendium Appendix III: Creatures of Darkness | Six magical diseases were created by an evil wizard who was killed by his six sons, who each became the first carrier of one of them: combustion (the victim experiences a horrible fever and eventually bursts into flames), crystal (the victim's blood crystallizes from within), petrification (the affected person gradually turns to stone), phobia (the victim becomes terrified of everything), psionic (the victim rapidly gains intelligence and psionic powers until their head explodes), and shadow (the affected person eventually fades into darkness). |
| Slarecian language virus | Scarred Lands | This odd affliction can infect anyone who tries to use magic or even rudimentary means to decipher the language of the Slarecian, an extinct species of evil sorcerers, if the work they are trying to decipher has this specific taint. An infected individual's language is changed to that of the Slarecians (which is gibberish to most natives of Scarn), meaning they can only understand or be understood by another infected victim, and all written language other than Slarecian makes no sense to them. Those affected do not realize what has happened to them, as what they say sounds clear to them. The disease is incredibly contagious; anyone who listens to an infected victim risks also becoming infected. |
| Vile diseases | Book of Vile Darkness | The book mentions seventeen diseases of varying lethality caused by evil magic or exposure to focal points of incredible evil. The most notorious ones are faceless hate (causes the affected person's face to vanish, and drives him to a violent, insane rage), life blindness (the victim is unable to see, hear, or otherwise perceive any other living thing, and is often driven mad from isolation and loneliness), and vile rigidity (they become stronger and tougher, but eventually, their skin hardens, until they can't move and suffocates). |
| Virally-induced toxic allergy syndrome (VITAS) | Shadowrun | Caused by a highly lethal and communicable airborne virus, VITAS is the disease responsible for many of the changes that led to what became the Sixth World in the Shadowrun universe, having killed a quarter of the world's population after its outbreak in 2011. A second strain (VITAS II) broke out in the 2020s, killing an additional 10%. Symptoms begin 12 hours after infection and begin with symptoms similar to influenza before developing into severe anaphylaxis leading to death usually by the airways swelling shut. Though treatable with modern drugs, at the initial outbreak of VITAS over 75% of the world's population became infected before a cure was discovered. |
| White fever | Ravenloft | A disease that is usually unique to the Core Domain of Valachan. Symptoms include weakness, exhaustion, chills, and loss of strength. Magical remedies cannot cure it, but conventional medicine can hasten recovery. In truth, "white fever" is one of many hoaxes orchestrated by Valachan's ruler, Baron Urik von Kharkov, in order to hide his true nature from his subjects. The illness is actually caused by the vampiric feeding of the baron and his servants. |
References
[edit]- ^ Sue Samuelson (July 1980), "The Cooties Complex", Western Folklore, 39 (3), Western States Folklore Society: 198–210, doi:10.2307/1499801, JSTOR 1499801
- ^ James Thurber (1939-03-18). "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". The New Yorker.
- ^ Tolkien, J. R. R. (1977). Christopher Tolkien (ed.). The Silmarillion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Of Turin Turambar. ISBN 978-0-395-25730-2.
- ^ Josefine Kilk (2017). "Om killkompisarna fick reda på det skulle han dö av skam" (PDF). Örebro University. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
- ^ Sofia Hansson, Jessica Olsson (2017). "Mjukismannen, visst finns han!" (PDF). Uppsala University. Retrieved 27 September 2020.
- ^ Jack Cyrus (February 16, 2020). "Hanahaki Disease". 2Twinz. Retrieved February 25, 2020.
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Further reading
[edit]- Disease in Fiction: Its Place in Current Literature Nestor Tirard, 1886.
- Vital Signs Medical Realism in Nineteenth-Century Fiction Lawrence Rothfield, 1992. ASIN B000J0QZSC
- "Les malades imaginés: Diseases in fiction". René Krémer. Acta Cardiologica, 2003.
- No Cure for the Future: Disease and Medicine in Science Fiction and Fantasy Gary Westfahl & George Slusser, 2002. ISBN 0-313-31707-0
- Nineteenth-Century Narratives of Contagion Allan Conrad Christensen, 2005. ISBN 0-415-36048-X
- The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases Jeff VanderMeer & Mark Roberts (ed). ISBN 0-553-38339-6