Name Source Symptoms
Andromeda Andromeda Strain Airborne pathogen, unknown organism, extraterrestrial origin, causes fatal blood clotting.
Antiheat Ben 10 episode "Side Effects" The effect of a human cold virus on members of Heat Blast's fire-based species. Changes their fire powers to ice. Not actually named in the episode.
Arad-II monochrom, Art Basel Miami Beach, Dec. 2005 Belonging to the Onoviridae family, Arad-II is similar to the Freiberg virus and is a trigger for Morbus Gamow-Shapley disease (another fictional disease). With over 1,500 cases worldwide, the disease is usually results in death by "mental aberration".
Bowden's Malady Firefly A degenerative disease affecting bones and muscles. It is treatable with a medicine called Pasceline D. Mentioned in episode The Train Job.
Drafa Plague Babylon 5 Neutralizes chemicals in the synaptic gap, thus inhibiting nerve signals from the brain to the rest of the body. Without clear direction from the brain as a result of the signals being blocked, the organs lose their ability to function correctly. For those that can be affected, the disease is 100% contagious, and if left untreated 100% terminal.
Dreaming Death Guiding Light Killed characters on the soap opera Guiding Light.
The Drips Moreau Series A venereal disease that only affects the genetically engineered non-human characters in S. Andrew Swann's Moreau Series
DR SAM The Plague Tales A drug-resistant staphylococcus strain in Ann Benson's The Plague Tales novels. DR SAM is an acronym for "drug-resistant staphylococcus aureus mexicalis."
Five Day Disease One piece A sickness caused by a bite from a mosquito thought to be long dead (however, it still lives on little garden). It causes rising fever for 119 to 124 houres until the infection reaches the heart and causes instant death. Symptoms are spots showing up at the mosquito bite, sweating, fever rising over 40° Celsius and fainting.
Foaming Sheep Sickness Discworld A disease caused by eating green mutton in the Discworld novel Jingo, a parody of Mad Cow Disease.
Geostigma Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children The negative side-effects of one's immune system overexerting the body in an attempt to purge Jenova's cells from within. Symptoms include extreme fatigue, open sores on the surface of one's skin, the excrement of dark puss from one's pores, and discoloration of the skin.
Glaubner's disease Firesign Theatre (symptoms unspecified)
HMHVV Shadowrun role playing game Human Meta-Human Vampiric Virus- a blood-borne pathogen, virus, known to produce vampires, wendigoes and other abominations.
HMHVV - Krieger strain Shadowrun role playing game A strain of HMHVV, with similar contagion, but produces cannibalistic ghouls.
Macrovirus Star Trek: Voyager A virus that can leave the microscopic world after absorbing growth hormones from hosts. It deposits itself in the host's neck, causing a high fever.
Mandrus, aka "Whore's Blossoms" Stephen King's The Waste Lands Venereal disease causing eruptive facial sores.
Mako Poisoning Final Fantasy VII A disease caused by overexposure to Mako energy. Symptoms include memory loss and overall immune deficiency. More severe cases result in physical mutation.
Martian venereal disease Transmetropolitan An untreatable infection rare on Earth, except among certain City prostitutes.
Mbwun reovirus The Relic A virus which infects a species of lily found only on a single plateau in Brazil. The leaves of the infected plant have a narcotic quality. When humans consume these leaves, the virus causes them to mutate into a monstrous, unstoppable creature which can only survive by consuming more of the plant--or by consuming the human hypothalamus gland.
Monkeynucleosis Hey Arnold! A disease resulting in sweaty hands, irritability, loss of appetite and eventual expiration; it begins with contact with a rabid monkey.
Motaba virus Outbreak Named for the Motaba River, causes hemorrhagic fever in humans similar to that of Ebola, a later strain was found to be airborne.
Mutated pneumonia Red Dwarf A virus which evolved from pneumonia during the three million years Dave Lister was in stasis. Its most notable symptom is the creation of solid hallucinations.
Necrotizing fasciitis Cabin Fever An actual disease; however, when it was featured in the movie Cabin Fever, it had a drastically accelerated and amplified effects.
Pokérus Pokemon Makes the infected Pokémon stronger. Most of the time, the pokémon's trainer would WANT the pokémon infected to stay infected, because it provided no unwanted side-effects, and the pokémon's stats grow at a higher rate. Pokérus was introduced in the Gold and Silver versions, and is in all subsequent versions; Red, Blue and Yellow do not have Pokérus.
Psi 2000 virus Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation Causes extreme irrationality in humans, from "The Naked Time" episode of Star Trek. Related strain in "The Naked Now" of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Actually a form of polywater rather than a conventional virus.
The Red Death The Masque of the Red Death A fictional plague from Edgar Allan Poe's short story "The Masque of the Red Death." Victims bleed from their pores before eventually dying
Rigellian fever Star Trek McCoy in Requiem for Methuselah: "Have you ever seen a victim of Rigellian Fever? They die in one day; the effects are like Bubonic Plague."
Sin's Toxin Final Fantasy X A sickness occurring as a result of coming in contact with a toxin secreted from Sin. Causes memory loss and a general state of confusion.
Senga But'n'Ben A-Go-Go A sexually transmitted disease in But'n'Ben A-Go-Go by Matthew Fitt.
Solanum The Zombie Survival Guide A virus which causes infected humans to become zombies, The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead by Max Brooks
Space Mumps Red Dwarf A disease which causes the sufferer's head to swell to the size and shape of a cantaloupe. When the disease "breaks", the swelling explodes.
Stroon Norstrilia A life-extending virus harvested from giant perpetually-sick sheep that only live on the planet Norstrilia, or Old North Australia. From the novel by Cordwainer Smith.
S.T.O.R.M.S Top 10 (comic) Sexually Transmitted Organic Rapid Mutation Syndrome. Evolved due to the sexual interations of the mutant, robot, superhero, animal and alien etc. etc. citizens of Neopolis. Causes massive mutations that invariablly render the sufferer a non-viable organism
Symbalene blood burn Star Trek: Enterprise Causes the vascular lining of blood vessels to boil away.
Vegan choriomeningitis Star Trek From the episode "The Mark of Gideon," a contagious pathogen from Vega, usually fatal.
Venereal ergot Transmetropolitan Infection - produces uncontrollable hallucinations and delirium.
Wasteland Herpes Wasteland computer game Sexual transmitted disease, radiation-mutated form of herpes, prevalent in prostitutes in post-WWIII Nevada.
Watson's Disease Wing Commander A highly contagious disease that afflicts colonists of the planet Fargo in the Dakota System in 2654, Watson's Disease can be prevented by a vaccine.
White Disease Karel Čapek's The White Disease An uncurable mysterious form of leprosy, killing people older than 30.
X Parasite disease Metroid Fusion Happens when an X Parasite or colony thereof enters the host body. The host's entire body is quickly overrun by X Parasites via their aesexual reproduction. The X Parasites use up all of the body's energy and upon the host creature's death, the X Parasites can replicate the host's body.
Zombie contagion Dawn of the Dead In the 2004 remake of Dawn of the Dead, a person could only become a zombie after being bitten by another zombie, showing that whatever caused the dead to rise could only be passed through fluid contact. This makes the epidemic more disease-like in nature than the outbreaks in George A. Romero's original Dead Trilogy, in which any dead body could become reanimated.
[edit]
Engineered diseases
Diseases engineered by humans, most of these were created as weapons; some were not.
Name Source Symptoms
AMPS Good News From Outer Space (Acquired Melanin Production Syndrome) - sexually transmitted, genetically engineered disease that turns white people black, Good News From Outer Space, by John Kessel.
Anthrax Leprosy Pi / Anthrax Leprosy Mu Illuminatus! trilogy Two versions of a highly contagious, deadly disease. Anthrax Leprosy Mu is hinted to be vastly superior to Anthrax Leprosy Pi. Both are created by Dr. Charles Mocenigo, under commission from the United States government, in the Illuminatus! trilogy.
Barclay's Protomorphosis Syndrome Star Trek: The Next Generation A disease that apparently re-activates pseudogenes, resulting in physical "devolution" to earlier phenotypes. Named after Reginald Barclay in whose body it was inadvertently created.
"The Big Death" Jeremiah Virus, biological weapon, notable for its high lethality amongst persons over the age of puberty, i.e. having adult hormones. The pathogen is transmitted by touch.
Captain Trips The Stand A deadly, flu-based virus. Causes a lethally high fever and is highly contagious.
Chimera Mission: Impossible II A virus engineered by the pharmaceutical corporation BioCyte to create a need for the vaccine Belerophon, which they had also created. The vaccine is only effective within 20 hours of exposure.
Closure Virus Eden: It's an Endless World An RNA retrovirus, causes an overcompensation from the immune system, preventing eukaryotic cells to perform endocytosis and exocytosis. The skin becomes callous and eventually hardens into a rocklike shell, while the internal organs are unable to metabolize and begin necrotizing. Believed to be airborne. Various individuals are immune to the disease, while infected can be treated by becoming cyborgs
Cobra The Cobra Event An engineered virus which, among other things, induces Lesch-Nyhan Syndrome, driving some victims to self-cannibalization of their lips and fingers. Richard Preston's The Cobra Event.
Cordilla virus 24 Causes bleeding from mouth and nose. 99.9% die within an hour of exposure.
DayStar Blade: Trinity An engineered virus targeted specifically at vampires. Highly lethal and readily transmissible, victims typically exhibit choking, convulsions and some blackening of the features before succumbing within seconds.
Descolada Ender's Game An engineered virus featured in Orson Scott Card's "Ender's Game" series. Though lethal to humans and all other species, the Descolada was vital to the native life forms on the planet Lusitania. Eventually it is discovered that the virus was created by an unknown race to make planets habitable for their own kind.
Ebola Shiva/Ebola Brahma Rainbow Six An enhanced strain of the Ebola filovirus designed to wipe out the human race except for a handful of environmentally conscious individuals, from Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy. Called "Shiva" in the novel and "Brahma" in the game.
FOXDIE Metal Gear Solid A genetically engineered virus that specifically targets certain individuals that the creators wish to permanently silence. Death mimics a heart attack. Also targets at least two of the Snakes born from the Les Enfants Terribles project, but was reengineered for Solid Snake so that if/when FOXDIE kicked in, it would be at an unpredictable date.
Forced Evolutionary Virus Fallout The FEV is a virus developed as a secret project by the American Government, just before the Third World War. The FEV is a virus that "perfects" living cells and mutates healthy humans; increasing intelligence, size and muscle tissue. These 'super mutants' appear as eight-foot, green skinned humanoids. Humans who've been exposed to radio-active radiation mutate into "ghouls" which are nothing more than immortal walking corpses. The FEV, however, sees reproductive cells as "damaged" and "repairs" them, by adding the missing half of the DNA and rendring mutant sperm and ova useless and sterile.
G-Virus Resident Evil 2 A mutagenic pathogen which causes the host to become a big, constantly evolving, practically unstoppable killing machine, with exceedingly high attack power and immense vitality, in addition to the ability to regenerate and mutate so quickly the carrier virtually loses its mortality. The purified virus can be injected directly into the host, or a mutated host can implant a small larvae, called a G-embryo into another host. The latter mode of transmission is most successful when the host and the new victim are genetically similar. Created by William Birkin. The virus would later merge with the T-Virus, creating an extremely dangerous, electromagnetic-capable variant called the T/G Virus.
G.U.I.L.T. Trauma Center: Under the Knife (Gangliated Utrophin Immuno Latency Toxin) - A usually lethal man-made disease used as the first biological weapon of "medical terrorism" in 2018.
Etc.
Wikipedia: Fake diseases
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