Nonmortuus Contagio; How About We Called Them Zombie Instead?

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Picture Source - Pixabay (CC0)

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In this 2-part series, we are going to talk about mummies and zombies. Yay! Two favourite topics, one being ancient and another, quite modern. It's undeniable that people love to see movies related to either of those two because we love to experience the danger of facing one without actually involved in it. I love seeing movies related to those genres with a little bit of gore in it, well, doesn't mean that I am a sociopath; I just enjoyed a little bit of brutality. Anyway, we are going to discuss zombies in this article and next week, I'm going to write about mummies.

In 2009, there has been a report of an outbreak of presumably viral infection which produced a relatively new "species" called the nonmortuus contagio; or "zombie" in laymen's term. The infection was reported to start in Ottawa and rapidly spread to the nearby states. In a book entitled "Braaaiiinnnsss!: From Academics to Zombies" which was published by the University of Ottawa press stated that people who were infected have some sort of cannibalistic behaviour along with physical deteriorations, almost similar to the appearance of zombies in any movie that you have watched. That's kinda creepy, isn't it?

Their bite was deadly (to a certain extent), and like how they have been illustrated in movies/series, any bodily fluid they produced contained infectious microorganisms that are capable of producing different types of zombie. So far, based on movies, novels and anything related to zombies (I know this is unreliable) there are five types of zombies which are often used to illustrate this horror creature:

• Vodou Zonbi
• Romero Zombie
• Fast Zombie
• Solanum Zombie
• Columbus Zombie

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Picture Source - Pixabay (CC0)

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Throughout the years, there are a few filmmakers that have produced zombie-related movies with a goal to educate the masses regarding these walking human corpses and used one or two of the zombie types listed above to establish a new reality among the general public; zombies are no longer one of the mythological creatures anymore. I'm sure all of them have no idea that zombie outbreaks would happen in 2009. They tried their best to implement some scientific idea to describe an unknown disease which is caused by an unknown virus which could lead to unknown implications; pretty much you can slip in some made up or predicted symptoms, consequences and zombie's capabilities to make the movie much interesting. The book published by the University of Ottawa was using some information gathered from movies so that it can be compared with the clinical data from patients that were infected in 2009 before any form of management can be made.

It is not to say that we believe everything which has been illustrated by movies or books etc. but sometimes we do appreciate human imaginations and we can get some clue which might give us something to proceed with; the worst situation that we could have been in is not knowing how to proceed, sure. Since the tragedy in 2009, the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) has been planning ways to educate the masses on how to be prepared, just in case the next zombie's apocalypse was to take place (Source). Of course, people love to discuss and give their own opinions regarding zombies; throughout the years there have been multiple crashed website servers related to zombie discussion and the topic itself has become viral several times in the social media. However, whether or not the platform for discussion prepared by certain non-profitable organisations or the CDC itself gave some sort of benefit regarding knowledge and action can be quite important; action is a critical thing. A survey conducted by the American Red Cross in 2010 found that 85% of the Americans agreed upon the importance of being prepared for emergencies but only a handful are known to carry it out.

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Picture Source - Pixabay (CC0)

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Immediately after the incident in 2009, a mathematical model was released by Dr Robert Smith to illustrate the possible explanation of the zombification processes. You can click here to view the schematic diagram. As you can see, some of the labels were written with a question mark, implications that are yet to be confirmed. Even if we found a cure, we can't treat death, and to become a zombie is to die first. Take Romero zombie for an example, a kind of zombie which was popularised by George A. Romero in his film, Night of the Living Dead. The zombification process would require people to be dead for at least 48 hours before we would know if they are either progressing through the process of natural death or zombification. The cure for zombification can act as a no cure at all. It has been illustrated by George regarding a population of zombie that can be trained to perform everyday tasks. He believes that humans and zombies can coexist if a total cure is not possible. Hence the cure can be some sort of stabilising or stimulating agent, to stimulate a certain part of the brain which is required for simple cognitive functions and/or makes them less contagious.

Wait, are all zombies dead then? Well, I did mention we have a few types of zombie, have I not? Fast zombies are different from Romero zombies; they were living people who are infected by viruses (not the kind that we have discovered yet). In 2002, Boyle did describe a type of virus which is called as the Rage virus that is capable of infecting people in a shorter period while implicating some sort of behavioural and physical changes to the one who is infected. There are a variety of descriptions regarding signs and symptoms exhibited by the infected but typically, those changes would manifest itself as what we have witnessed in people who have a disease called Waardenburg syndrome. As zombies have an affinity to bite people, we could only assume that the virus is bloodborne which make it more dangerous and invasive to people around them. A city that is inhabited by approximately 500,000 people would be taken over by zombies in a matter of four days (Source).

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Picture Source - Pixabay (CC0)

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If a cure does exist, then according to the projected population dynamic graph (Refer Here), the number of zombie population would be 4 times higher than the number of humans. It would take some time before we can institute treatments to those raging living corpses. It is tough but we can't predict the nature of the illness just yet; is there any possibility of recurrences? If there is then, the safest place for humans is to live in isolation. Impulsive attack can be made if we (humans) have the resources and manpower but it would end in one of the two outcomes; we will either kill all of the zombies in approximately 10 days (according to the projected outcome of intervention, refer here) or we will be eaten, turned and diminished, perhaps to the point of global extinction. It's kinda sad to think that our future generation might be zombies instead of you know, healthy humans.

Concerning the level of our preparedness towards the apocalyptic event, I can say that it will the same for all kind of emergencies. The reason why the CDC provides a website platform for people to discuss the zombie apocalypse is to encourage the general population to learn about emergencies management. It's an exciting topic and judging from the number of unique visitors that came to join the discussion on the zombie apocalypse, it is a suitable time to educate and encourage people to prepare themselves against any kind of calamities. Treatment option for the zombies would vary between types. Romero zombies can't be cured as they are already dead but the other zombie types can be treated with antiviral and antibiotics. The most probable reason for physical deterioration would be certain types of infections and it is reasonable to assume that, like any major viral infection, patients with zombie-related viruses would be immunodeficient. Antibiotics would act to resolve any constitutional or symptoms related to infection.

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Picture Source - Pixabay (CC0)

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Even though most of the zombies presumably can be treated with antiviral, the fact that zombification to Colombus zombies is not caused by a virus would render the antiviral useless. Columbus zombies are created by prions, the same agent which caused bovine spongiform encephalopathy, which can't be cured with any kind of medication, yet. It is a form of mutated protein and for most of the cases, are sporadic. This would impose a certain level of difficulty as anyone of us can become a zombie at any time. If we can understand prions much better, vaccines could be developed to protect people from turning, the only problem with that is people who kinda against the vaccination and would rather be a zombie than to take a 20 bucks vaccine. I hope they would find the benefit of vaccination outweigh the risk of turning to zombies or else, we are doom.

Zombification from the rage virus is pretty intense, unfortunately for them and us, they would be more aggressive in attacking humans. Some zombies eat humans to satisfy their version of cellular respiration. Romero zombies, for example, have no working system (they are dead) so to satisfy their own needs, they would eat human flesh to supply substrate for their cellular respiration (we do not know much about them). Fast zombies, on the other hand, die much faster than the rest of the zombies as they would stop eating (or eat significantly less) after the onset of the infection. To treat them, it would be best to isolate them in a specified room or space so that they can be monitored periodically. If you want to kill them, isolate them and just wait for a few weeks. They would end up dead by then. Knowing in depth about the types of zombies and how to manage is them is crucial if we want to survive the apocalyptic world if somewhere in the future the outbreak started to happen. Who knows? Maybe they are, right about now.

References and further reading materials

• Braaaiiinnnsss!: From Academics to Zombies. Retrieved on October 20th, 2018.
• Zombie Apocalypse: Can the Undead Teach the Living How to Survive an Emergency?. Retrieved on October 20th, 2018.
• A report on the zombie outbreak of 2009: how mathematics can save us (no, really). Retrieved on October 20th, 2018.
• Preparedness 101: Zombie Apocalypse. Retrieved on October 20th, 2018.

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