Vaccine Developed Against Ebola

New submitter Lurching writes "Scientists have developed a vaccine that protects mice against a deadly form of the Ebola virus. First identified in 1976, Ebola fever kills more than 90% of the people it infects. The researchers say that this is the first Ebola vaccine to remain viable long-term and can therefore be successfully stockpiled. The results are reported in the journal Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (abstract)."

Comments

That's nice

[symbolset]

But there are 17 labs on Earth working to weaponize Ebola. This vaccine is unlikely to be effective against the weaponized strain because the infectious genes are likely to be cribbed from influenza with completely different modality. Ebola Reston, the only known airborne variety (and considerably less fatal), is unlikely to have been captured by terrorists, but various interests are patrolling Africa seeking samples of emergent strains, including Hezbolla, the Taliban and the CDC. When they get them they will employ the latest gene splicing techniques as well as Mendellian methods to emerge a hemorrhagic virus that's airborne, incubates for three weeks, and kills 90% of the exposed population. Then they will deliberately infect hundreds of martyrs immediately before their pre-approved flights to various US cities, with instructions to commingle with the population as much as they can - unaware they've been infected with the dire virus.

And then our modern world is over. The US doesn't know who did it, so they have to broad-spectrum nuke the rest of the world back to the stone age so the surviving Americans have a chance. And then the virus wipes out most of the survivors in the rest of the world as they come in contact with it. But there was no time to immunize the US, so it too suffered.

So here's the plot: Nation A immunizes their entire population against Ebola, and - thinking they're safe - launches their Ebola dispensing satellites around the world. The Ebola mutates, so while 80% of the Western world is bleeding to death out their anus, only 60% of the rest of the world is. But then the western labs, knowing it's the end - unleash their version of hemorragic influenza on the world, killing 90% of the survivors. The nukes fly, rendering 98% of the planet uninhabitable. Between the evolutions of the virii and the nukes, the world's population is diminished from 7 billions to maybe 1 million.

And then because CO2 output dropped, the glaciers come and pare us back to maybe 100,000.

You see if I experiment with fission to create the elements I need for a nuclear weapon no matter what I do, no matter how I control it, no matter how well it's shielded, the damned thing is going to give off neutrino emissions that make it glow like the sun to spy satellites and uninterested observers the world over. But if I splice genes in my basement nobody knows but me and my precious virii.

Sounds like a party. I'm in.

Re:Followed by weaponization?

[ArsenneLupin]

You don't have to necessarily fuck someone up the ass to get HIV.

True. You can actually get more easily it by having someone fuck you in the ass...