Crawling Terror

A degenerative disease originating on Meshi'rah, Crawling Terror can affect most, if not all, species. In its native range, it primarily affects mammalian species, including the lih'rah, but it is just as capable of affecting species with differing anatomy.
Caused by a small parasitic creature native to Meshi'rah's underground, Crawling Terror can spread very easily, carried on by those afflicted by it. While most official organizations make travelers go through rigorous health checks to ensure no diseases spread, unofficial organizations may be far less interested in such hassles. Pirates, poachers, smugglers, and traffickers are all potential vectors to carry a disease like Crawling Terror off-planet, where it might spread and proliferate until it's found across the galaxy.

Transmission & Vectors

Crawling Terror originates with a small parastic animal from Meshi'rah, which lays its eggs in living creatures. They prefer mammalian hosts, whose bodies (typically) run warmer and whose fur makes it easier to cling on while implanting the eggs. After laying their eggs--multiple eggs per host--the animal leaves, and the host generally suffers no side-effects until the eggs hatch.
Since Crawling Terror is caused by the growing young, it is only infectious once the original host dies, their parasites flying out to reproduce and implant their own young. But since one host typically contains multiple parasites, it can quickly turn into an outbreak, each generation growing exponentially.

Causes

Crawling Terror is not caused by the eggs laid within a host's flesh, but by the young which emerge from these eggs. Not long after being laid (with exact timespan varying, partly dependent on body temperatures), the eggs hatch, with young parasites emerging. They mostly stay in the place where they were planted, but begin to feed on their host's flesh, injecting them with a toxin in turn. This toxin numbs the host, making it easier for them to overlook the parasites feeding on them, but it also causes numerous side-effects: the characteristic symptoms of Crawling Terror.

Symptoms

Crawling Terror typically begins slow, with affected suffering from hair loss (or something similar, in non-mammalian species, like loss of feathers, or failure to regrow shed scales). They also get increased appetite, but typically suffer from weight loss in spite of this--the increased food goes towards their parasites, rather than their own bodies.
Over time, these symptoms get worse, leaving afflicted stick-thin and mostly (if not entirely) bald, at which point their senses will begin to shut down. Hearing, sight, smell, even taste, until the sick are barely capable of sensing the world around them. Finally, their organs begin to shut down, until they suffer from severe enough organ failure that they die... assuming nothing else kills them before that point. The order in which senses or organs shut down varies, and factors deciding whether, for example, hearing goes before eyesight are unclear, with few studies done on the disease.

Treatment

As a degenerative disease, there is no reversing or curing Crawling Terror. If the parasite's eggs can be found and removed before they hatch, the host gets away with it before ever getting the actual disease. Once the eggs hatch, the young can be removed, but damage done by their toxins is irreversible.
Damage to hair follicles prevents new hair growth, and chemical alterations to the brain ensure that the (former) host will retain their altered appetite even without parasites to feed. Lost senses, or damaged organs, likewise don't recover, although the latter may be replaced with non-afflicted organs (senses are typically afflicted not in the sensory organs, but in the brain that processes their signals).

Prognosis

Once afflicted, most who suffer from Crawling Terror are doomed. While technically the condition can be prevented from furthering by removing the parasites causing it, they are so small in size and numerous enough that it is almost impossible to actually do so, especially without advanced and specialized technology.
Crawling Terror, as a disease, always leads to death. Sooner or later, the afflicted will suffer from severe enough organ failure that they die, assuming they don't die sooner of outside reasons--their failing senses leading them to their death, or other people killing them in the hopes of preventing the disease from spreading.

Cultural Reception

Crawling Terror is highly feared by the lih’rah, because once one person has it, it can quickly escalate, with the host needing to be killed and their body burned in the hopes that all parasites are killed with it.

Type

Parasitic

Origin

Natural

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Rare