Ragpox Epidemic

Plague / Epidemic

In 2478, a new and virulent disease affecting humans broke out on six worlds in quick succession, and then began appearing on other worlds. The disease caused severe infection and affected dermal proteins, affecting skin integrity (the name "Ragpox" was coined from the tags of dying skin sloughing from patients' torso and extremities.) Mortality rates were in the 9-13% range and more than a third of survivors were left with brain damage and/or Parkinson's-like tremulae.

The Interstellar Clearinghouse Academy requested affected worlds quarantine, but the disease continued to spread through 2485. The newly-chartered Intercolonial Health Council coordinated research and recruited "mercy ships" to deliver treatments and vaccines when developed. In 2489 the Council issued the Decontamination and Quarantine Protocols and by 2498 the disease was pronounced eradicated.

When Ragpox first appeared in 2481 it manifested on six worlds on the Th'renn plot within a week of the trade ship Second Manassas from Hudders Colony docking there to pick up or offload cargo. It took some time for the pattern to become clear, but when the disease broke out on Phlegesto after a ship from Duni Maior delivered a load of construction materials, epidemiologists were able to trace the pattern.

In the initial days of space travel much concern was expended over the possibility of "space bugs" or viruses to be encountered on new worlds or in space itself. The reality proved more soothing- pathogens that could affect humans had to evolve in an environment where humans and/or Tellurian life vectors were available. Interplanetary travel commenced largely untrammeled by concerns about any pathogens but those humans might carry with them.

Ragpox turned out to be a mutation of a much older pathogen endemic to certain species of swine, which had been transported to Hudders Colony along with a group of colonists attempting to create a 'natural' agrarian community. The pathogen evolved in tandem with the swine and the colonists' immunities, producing in them a mild fever with occasionally severe dyskinesia, and very rarely a fatality from an acute case with a high fever.

Once the pathogen had been identified, thanks to medical reference libraries on Tellus, development of treatments and an effective vaccine proceeded swiftly. Controlling the spread of the disease was a more difficult challenge.

The Second Manassas's itinerary took it to six stops, all busy ports on the Th'renn plot, between the 14th of Second, and the 26th of Eleventh. Four of the stops were in the Vegan Colonial Unionwhich initiated port quarantines, but departures had already taken place. Jijivisha and Jian Lu took longer, and an estimated 102 potentially exposed departures had taken place from the six ports initially exposed.

Klavangi were not vulnerable to the pathogen and klavangi merchant ships assisted the "mercy ships" recruited by the Intercolonial Health Council, but it took three years to transport treatments and vaccines to all of the affected worlds. By the end of the epidemic thirty-one worlds had been infected and more than 5 million fatalities were recorded.