VITAS

Virally-Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome (VITAS for short) is a dangerous and extremely communicable airborne virus. Two strains of the virus spread globally during the early 21st century, both times causing widespread death, chaos and destruction. Modern treatments exist to cure VITAS, but these treatments tend to be expensive, forcing the poor to suffer through the virus, if they can survive at all.

Transmission & Vectors

As an airborne disease, VITAS spreads through the airways of a patient and can be transmitted simply by breathing the same air. Without proper ventilation, a patient can contaminate an entire room within a short period of time, especially after the initial incubation period, when the coughing fits begin. VITAS can also spread through mucus, but this is less common than airborne transmission. 
Most mammals can carry VITAS, but only primates seem to get symptoms. This makes pets especially dangerous to keep around, as they can act as an asymptomatic vector that repeatedly infects or reinfects a population without the virus fully dying out of their system.

Symptoms

VITAS has an incubation period of about 12 hours following initial exposure. During this time, symptoms such as fever, chills and vomiting are common. Once the incubation period ends, the patient begins to experience bronchial restrictions, resulting in difficulty breathing, coughing, and eventually death by suffocation. 
Humans and elves are especially weak to the virus; on average most infected will be dead shortly after the incubation period ends. Odds of survival are 1 in 216 for humans and elves. Trolls and orks, with their higher physical constitution, have a much higher rate of survival, around 1 in 72. Dwarves are much more like to survive infection thanks to their naturally robust immune system, with a survival rate of 1 in 36

Treatment

A variety of treatments exist, ranging from simple symptom negation to full cures. Antivirals obviously work well; tetracycline was used during the first strain of the virus in the 2010s and more modern Zeta-Inteferon was used during the second strain in the 2020s. More recent strains show more and more resistance to antivirals, leading many scientists to believe that a full resistant strain could lay on the horizon. 
Thankfully, another treatment option revealed itself in 2011; magic. Magical treatment is highly effective at treating the virus, hence presumably why the first strain barely impacted Amerind communities, which were extremely magically active. With antiviral methods becoming less effective, magical treatment is becoming more common, but comes with the downside of being more expensive for those who are not Awakened.

History

The first recorded case of VITAS occurred in New Delhi, India, from which it spread across the globe rapidly. The Caribbean League and the Gold and Ivory Coasts were hit particularly hard due to large scale transport activities in the regions and a lack of access to medical needs. The first strain, which lasted for two years, killed about a quarter of the world's population before world health organizations found effective treatments. For the following decade, however, lower income or less developed regions continued to experience outbreaks, during which the virus has time to adapt.
By the early 2020s, a new strain of the virus, known as VITAS-II, adapted enough to become resistant to the antiviral used at the time. This second strain once again spread globally, but was stopped much faster in developed countries. It still caused widespread destruction in less developed nations, leading to a death toll of about 10% of the global population, but it didn't last as long and had less of an impact on the global stage.
Further strains have existed in the time since the '20s, but few have had the widespread impact that the initial strains did. With the discovery of magical treatments, VITAS became much easier to deal with, at least for the communities with either the magical talent or the money to get magical treatment.

Type

Viral

Cycle

Short-term

Rarity

Rare