Loimos

Excerpt from Schmidt et al. (1962). Loimos for the vaccination generation. The Lancet, 300(7775), 493-504; an older article, but still considered the most recent review of the disease suitable for the layman:

Epidemiology and transmission: Loimos is caused by a common virus, Treponema loimos, which infects nerve cells via B-plasmid insertion (thereby replicating with every new cell). T. loimos has been identified in myriad albeit isolated natural sources as diverse as pond mud in Kazakhstan, maned wolf scat in Bolivia, and eagle-owl livers in southern Sweden. It does not seem to affect animals and human infection from natural sources is incredibly rare.

The ensuing disease is often contracted albeit only rarely symptomatic before the teen years. Transmission occurs most commonly through extensive contact with the mucus (e.g., sputum, saliva, nasal, genital) produced by an infected person. Frequent local (yet epidemic) outbreaks in the ‘40s for example were determined to have been caused by insufficient drinking water filtration for public reservoirs in which infected persons had bathed.

Not all exposed contract the disease, although this phenomenon is yet unexplained. Of the general population, it is thought that 45-65% are naturally immune.

Symptoms and prognosis: Initially presenting as an itchy, pale pink rash across the torso post-puberty, the disease soon bears few physical indications. Muscle weakness and soreness, nerve tingling or pain, loss of sensation or fine motor control in the extremities or the face are all common and may come and go throughout an individual’s lifetime, whereas the lethargy and mild, placid confusion tends to remain fairly constant. This eventually becomes early-onset dementia (first symptoms around 40 years of age, occasionally as early as the third decade) and a rapid decline, death occurring usually 2-3 years later. Secondary infections (especially respiratory) are quite common and usually the cause of death. Lifespan rarely exceeds 60. Due to the mental "fog", patients struggle to consistently hold down gainful employment or keep house.

Treatment and prevention: There is no known cure for Loimos. Treatment is purely palliative and includes basic nursing care as individuals cannot live alone; isolation colonies have for many decades been the norm throughout the western world to minimize outbreaks.

The vaccine, developed collaboratively by labs in Geneva and Stockholm, was first tested on human subjects in 1949 and released the following year in aggressive vaccination campaigns backed by the WHO and national governments worldwide. All public schoolchildren and most adults in North America, Europe, and Australia were vaccinated within the first decade and the campaign continues to this day in Africa, Asia, and South America. In the early years of the vaccine, boosters were often administered but these were later deemed unnecessary. Vaccine efficacy continues to be monitored but it has been sufficiently high to deem further research for a cure unnecessary.

As there are still living individuals with the disease (mostly in isolation colonies), it cannot yet be considered eradicated in any region, although there were only 16 new cases in the USA in the past year.