Brittle Bone Wasting Disease
Transmission & Vectors
The disease is spread by contact with infected bodily fluids, excrement, and the ingestion of infected meat. It can also be passed on from mother to child if the mother is infected with the disease, most commonly resulting in the stillbirths of the resulting clutch if egg formation is still possible by the mother.
Causes
Brittle Bone Wasting Disease (BBWD) is a prion disease, caused by damage to proteins, primarily in the brain and brainstem of dragons. It is thought that BBWD is a variant of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) found in ungulates, that jumped the zoonic barrier to dragonkin.
Symptoms
There are various symptoms associated with BBWD, and the illness can take several months to several years to display the full array of symptoms. Symptoms typically start rather mild, such as fatigue, insomnia, and increased appetite. Over the course of the disease's progression, the symptoms begin to get more severe. Dragons infected will begin to drastically lose weight, experience memory problems and increased aggression, and no longer process calcium from food sources. As they can no longer gain calcium from food, their bodies will begin to take calcium from their bones, making them incredibly brittle. Later stages of the disease see that infected dragons are extremely susceptible to bones breaking anywhere in the body, which oftentimes is fatal. Neurological symptoms will progressively worsen, and collapses of the skull often cause brain damage. Nearly all dragons infected with the disease will die within 10 years of infection.
Prevention
While there is no treatment for BBWD, vaccinations and boosters against it do exist, which can prevent infections from taking hold in new populations. Vaccinations are effective for generally around 75 years, after which time a booster every 5 years will remain effective in preventing it. Young dragons can be vaccinated as young as 2 years old, either by injection or oral vaccination, though oral vaccinations do take up to three months to be effective.
Thanks to vigorous vaccination efforts, the disease has had no proven cases in sentient dragons the past century, but still occasionally occurs in feral dragons in the Land of Gods, Laramidia, Appalachia, and northern Asia. No cases have occurred in Europe, Africa, or southern Asia in at least 250 years, and the disease remains completely undocumented in the Pacific region, though this is likely due to extremely low dragon and ungulate populations.
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