Zombies have firmly settled in popular popular culture: a huge number of comics, films, programs have been released about them. They are unpleasant but surprisingly attractive. However, most people certainly do not believe that zombie apocalypses can exist in reality.
Nevertheless, unfortunately, in the real world there are such infectious diseases, the outbreak of which, under certain circumstances, would lead to an almost real zombie apocalypse. Sick people would behave like 100% zombies.
One such infection, which spreads extremely easily and radically changes the behavior of the sick person, is the rabies virus. They can easily get infected through blood, saliva and other bodily fluids. Most often, infection occurs through a bite.
Rabies is deadly, but before its carrier dies, it will try to spread the virus among as many suitable living organisms as possible.
The life cycle of this virus is not complicated, but it is dangerous in that an already infected person or animal can behave quite normally for a certain time. This condition can last from 10 days to 3-4 months, and sometimes up to a year - the so-called incubation period.
The virus affects the central nervous system and after the onset of the active stage of the disease, the patient's behavior begins to change, he becomes anxious, restless, his consciousness becomes more and more confused, hallucinations, convulsions, salivation and increased sweating may occur.
In the brightest stage, the sick person becomes very aggressive, animals can begin to bite anyone who meets on their way. Although there are rumors that people can behave in the same way, there is no official confirmation of this.
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After the active stage, patients die from muscle paralysis and cardiac arrest.
If someone creates an altered rabies virus or mutates on their own and has a short incubation period, lower mortality and a more prolonged active phase, then a massive epidemic (pandemic) of rabies will be very similar to a movie zombie apocalypse.
Jonathan Dinman, a professor in the Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Maryland, described this process very vividly in an interview with RedOrbit:
“So, you are infected with this rabies virus and now its work does not allow you to die, but takes over your brain and forces you to rush at other people and bite them. All infected people thus turn into some kind of automatons dedicated to only one goal - the spread of the virus.
To do this, you just need to change the main viral property and turn it from a rapidly developing fatal infection into something chronic like herpes, which will be with you all your life. At the same time, the virus must completely control the thinking and behavior of a person so that he does not deviate from the set goal and does not even think about the invention of drugs."
Rabies is not the only infection that can make a herd of insane zombies out of humanity. For this purpose, lethargic encephalitis or sleeping sickness can perfectly cope (not to be confused with the sleeping sickness that causes the tsetse fly). The causative agent of this terrible disease has not yet been precisely determined, but it is assumed that a virus has also worked here.
The disease affects the brain and the sick begin to suffer from a sore throat, their temperature rises, general lethargy begins, flowing into a prolonged coma-like state, most often ending in the death of the sick person. The disease spread widely around the world between 1915 and 1926, but since then only isolated cases have been known.
Oliver Sachs, in his book Awakenings, described patients with lethargic encephalitis as follows:
“They were still conscious and aware of reality, but they were as if half asleep; they sat motionless and silent all day in their chairs, completely devoid of energy, stimulus, initiative, motive, appetite, affect or desire; they understood what was happening around them, but without active attention and with deep indifference. They did not experience the sensation of life; they were as insignificant as ghosts and passive as zombies."
Even stranger, from time to time, these patients had sudden bursts of activity with rage and they pounced on anyone who even just touched their shoulder. It certainly sounds a lot like a zombie effect.
Photo: Lindsey Turner.
Of course, lethargic encephalitis is not so dangerous as to cause the effect of a zombie apocalypse. But as with the rabies virus, it can actually be reworked in a way that is more effective.
In addition, in addition to villainous scientists, such a virus can appear on its own. In nature, viruses constantly mutate. Suffice it to recall the regularly occurring dangerous strains of influenza or pneumonia.
And these mutations may well affect much more dangerous viruses like Ebola, Anthrax and others. Nature has a certain talent for coming up with really evil ways to quietly kill us, which are often, unfortunately, very difficult to learn.
The lines from World War Z sum up this article very well:
“Mother Nature is a real serial killer. There is no one better than her or more creative. Like all serial killers, she cannot help, but she has a pity to get caught. So she leaves us some bread crumbs. And the most difficult thing is when we see these crumbs and we need to find the key. Sometimes, where the most brutal part of the virus is, there is a gap in its armor. Mother Nature loves to mask her weakness as strength. She's a real bitch."