Spread of a Disease or Virus

[Kage Kazumi]

Reader,

 

I am a writer/student working on a novel that needs to spread a disease/virus all across the world (or most of it) and infecting millions of people world wide. I have been discussing this with fellow writers to see what would be the best way to do this. At first I thought of food, but had issues with food being sold and shipped world wide. One idea proposed was to use Mosquitos.

 

A group of people could be infected with 'said unknown disease' and each person goes back home where their local Mosquitos feed on a few of them and spread it that way. I even threw in the idea of adding other blood sucking insects like the Kissing Bug, Ticks, and Bed Begs to help spread said disease.

 

Do you think this would be a believable way to spread a disease or do you think people could contain it to fast?

 

v/Respectfully,

Kage

[CharonY]

There are several issues with that from a biological viewpoint. For instance, you will find different mosquito species in different regions. So the virus or whatever would have to survive the digestive passage of very different species, which is somewhat tricky. The easiest would be spread by aerosols between humans (e.g. by body fluids such as saliva) with a long incubation time.

[Suxamethonium]

Hi- I'm not much for the writing type so I just kinda put together my ideas/life example in the hope that they would be helpful to you

 

So I am assuming this book is fiction, and it is absolutely awesome that you are checking feasibility!! If I were you however, I wouldn't get too "bogged down" in the technicalities- for example, perhaps this is a "new" type of virus that can infect something common (perhaps fictional?) to all mosquitoes? Alternatively you might have a viral agent that uses a bacterial vector for a real twist in our current idea of disease (i.e. bacteria spreading the virus- this would likely spread quickly and easily even if 'people' are contained initially). I personally think it is ok to bend the rules of reality in fiction that is trying to remain realistic provided there is an explained, logical link as to why it occurred (although, there are limits in this that movies are practically famous for ignoring).

 

On a personal note regarding these things, I watched crank the other day... Watching it was painful merely because they tried to be correct- but were just blatantly wrong. I nearly cried when they called epinephrine an 'inhibitor/antagonist' (judging from the story line the guy was effectively overdosed on a beta-1 blocker and it certainly isn't incurable). Needless to say my friends got sick of saying "It's a movie". I guess my point here is that people ignorant in the area wont really know and don't want to get distracted by details, as for the others it will most likely vary based on how anal they are I suppose.

 

Write something you are happy with