In Literature
| Name | Source | Symptoms |
|---|---|---|
| Andromeda Strain also known as La Linea Verde de Muerte; The Green Line of Death. | Andromeda StrainThe Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton |
A deadly, green, crystalline, extraterrestrial agent of indeterminate origin. It erodes the vessel walls of the circulatory system, causing death by either triggering the body's coagulation response (resulting in the entire system clotting in a few seconds), or by cerebral hematomas (accompanied by dementia) if clotting is prevented. It evolves at a rapid rate, is spread by airborne transmission, and is extremely contagious. However, it only functions within a very narrow pH range, and cannot survive in a human body if that human's blood chemistry is too alkaline or too acidic. |
| 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. |
| Black Trump Virus | Wild Cards by George R. R. MartinWild 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 aka 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 an encephalopathy. Buscard's Murrain is infectious, as the afflicted desire to hear others pronounce the wormword. |
| Captain Trips ("Superflu", "tube neck", and "project blue") | StandThe Stand 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. |
| 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. |
| Codon Zero | Codon Zero by Jim Hendee |
Codon Zero is the name of the nucleotide sequence that encodes a plague that infects only Arabs and Jews which share a common genetic ancestry that began millennia ago. A secretive group of geneticists has developed this deadly disease (dubbed the Middle East Plague by The New York Times) to force the leaders of the Middle East into a binding peace. The geneticists claim that the afflicted will develop symptoms of dehydration, thirst, headache, dizziness and a decrease in appetite, and although they will feel deathly ill indefinitely, it should not prove fatal. The geneticists engage the talents of the hero, Jason Stouter, in a not-so-subtle blackmail that involves his terminally ill son. Jason must infect the leaders in the Middle East, but his efforts are thwarted by the villain, Khalil Zufar, who enlists his own genetic engineer to make the disease fatal and thus threaten not only millions of Jews and Arabs, but through a surprising twist, threatens to upset the whole world's economy. |
| Cooties | Various | A term used by children in the USA, 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. |
| Collins' Syndrome | The Legend of Deathwalker by David Gemmell | A mutating disease that often starts with pain and sensitivity in the victims nipples, then forms a temporary tumor in the brain as it feeds upon the genetic material of the brain cells, sapping away the victims 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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 include similar hormones. It was released by the President of the United States of America to start the world over, killing almost all adults within 2 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. |
| Foul-Drought | Heir of Mistmantle by M. I. McAllisterThe 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. |
| 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. |
| Gray DeathThe Gray Death | Gail Carson Levine's The Two Princesses of Bamarre | 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. |
| 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 the terrorist mastermind Ra's Al Ghul after he consulted the Wheel of Plagues. |
| Greyscale | A Song of Ice and Fire | Greyscale is a typically nonfatal disease in the Song of Ice and Fire series. It is first introduced in Stannis Baratheon's daughter Shireen. When it infects children, greyscale 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 flesh (small patches in children and the entire body in adults) of the victim to stone. It is said that the disease also drives its adult victims insane. |
| 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 which causes rapid speciation and accelerates evolution. |
| Great Plague | The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien | A mysterious disease which swept down through every single kingdom of Middle-earth during the mid 1600s of the Third Age of the Sun. The Plague's origins are unknown except it was possibly contracted from the Corsairs who attacked Gondor in Third Age 1634, two years before the Plague occurred. The Plague was 90% fatal for nearly all inhabitants of Middle-earth, especially in Gondor and the North. |
| I-Pollen Degenerative Disorder | DC Comics
Transmetropolitan |
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 cognative skills. It is comparable to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. |
| Legacy Virus | Marvel Multiverse | A disease that targets only mutants, causing genetic and biological degradation and eventual death; shortly before death, the virus' effects will cause a violent, uncontrolled flare-up of the victim's superhuman abilities. |
| 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. |
| Krytos virus | Star Wars Expanded Universe"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 killed its host in less than two weeks, resulting in a painful death. |
| Middle East Plague | Codon Zero by Jim Hendee |
(See Codon Zero, above.) |
| Red DeathThe Red Death | Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe"The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe |
Victims bleed from their pores before eventually dying. See also: Scarlet Plague. |
| RipleyThe 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. |
| 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 an hacksaw. |
| Salt Plague | Spiritwalker Trilogy by Kate Elliott |
Disease which 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 | Scarlet Plague by Jack LondonThe Scarlet Plague by Jack London |
This 1912 novella, also known as the Scarlet Death, is a work of post-apocalyptic fiction treating the world after civilization has been destroyed by this fictional disease. |
| Shiva | Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy |
A artificial virus created by the means of biotechnology and based upon the Ebola agent to help the aim of a group of eco-terrorists in annihilating mankind. |
| Snow Crash | Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson |
A dangerous drug which 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.] |
| Spattergroit | Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows | 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. |
| Solanum Virus | World War Z/The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks | A virus which 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 extremeties, and discolouration 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 victims 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 gains invulnerability to all weapon fire, except the brain, which is the victim's sole weakness. The victim also exhibits typical zombie-like behaviour such as psychotic behaviour and mindless rage. |
| Stone Sickness | The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell | Not a human disease, but one which affects humans and other inhabitants of the Edge by attacking the rocks of the flight ships which is 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 meteorlogical 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. |
| "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 which 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 which causes grotesque mutations, such as extra body parts, to grow all over the body. Seems to affect only teenagers. |
| The Pulse | Cell by Stephen King | A powerful virus which 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. |
| V-CIDS | ImmortalsThe Immortals | 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 zombie-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 which 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. |
| (unknown) | The Walking Dead | An unnamed disease of unknown origin. When a human is infected by it, the disease will infect all cells, 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 16 hours. After the victim's clinical death, the host will be revitalized and will wake up exhibiting 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 by biting. The disease leads to society's collapse and results in a world stricken by a zombie apocalypse. |
| 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 which affects rabbits causing blindness and death. |
| 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. |
| White Disease | White Disease by Karel ČapekThe White Disease by Karel Čapek |
An incurable mysterious form of leprosy, killing people older than 30. |
| White Plague | White Plague by Frank HerbertThe White Plague by Frank Herbert |
A genetically engineered virus that kills only women. Released only on Irish, English, and Libyan populace. |
| Xenovirus Takis-A | Wild Cards by George R. R. MartinWild 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's 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 can't 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. MartinWild 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 twenty-four percent of attempts. Forty-seven percent of the time it doesn’t work at all, and an appalling twenty-nine percent of the time, it outright kills the patient. In other words, it’s 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. |
Read more about this topic: Fictional Diseases
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