From zombie movies like I am Legend and 28 Days Later, we have seen incidents about a virus that spreads like a plague and reduces rational human beings into mindless cannibalistic monsters.
Although these scenes can only be found in movies and zombies don’t exist, scientists have recently discovered certain viruses, which can induce zombie-like behaviors. It has been revealed in the National Geographic documentary, “The Truth Behind Zombies” where several scientists claim the existence of such viruses that induce zombie-like actions.
A disease close to that is rabies, which is a viral disease that causes people to go insane by infecting the central nervous system, as stated by Samrita Andreansky, a virologist at the University of Miami in Florida.
Now if we try to imagine a rabies virus that can spread fast through the air, we might see the start of a zombie apocalypse.
Can Rabies Viruses Mutate?
Unlike zombies in movies where the result of a bite infection is immediate, the effects of rabies are slower yet deadlier. The first symptoms that a human has rabies can be confusion, hallucinations, anxiety, and paralysis – and these effects might take about ten days to even a year to occur.
It is advisable to treat it within a week or the symptoms might get ugly.
Rabies virus incubation time could be reduced significantly if the genetic code of rabies goes through enough changes. There are various ways to get viral mutations, like mistakes when they are replicating genes or by getting damaged from ultraviolet light.
So the bottom line according to Andreasnsky is that a rabies virus with a high mutation rate has the ability to cause a zombie-like infection even within a few hours.
Flu Rabies Can Create Rage Virus
But before we can expect something dramatic like in the movies, the rabies virus needs to be more contagious. Humans usually catch rabies after being bitten by animals with rabies infection – for example, a dog. But the infection normally stops there.
Due to the introduction of pet vaccinations, rabies rarely infects people nowadays. Fewer people die because of rabies. In 2008, only two people were reportedly caught with rabies in the United States.
A faster and more lethal mode of transferring virus is through the air, which is how the influenza virus spreads. In order for rabies to be transmitted through the air they would have to borrow traits from the influenza virus.
By a process called reassortment or recombination, there is a way to swap pieces of genetic code from different forms of the same virus. But this is not a natural process, said Elankumaran Subbiah, a virologist at Virginia Tech.
It is not yet scientifically proven that traits are exchanged between two radically different viruses like influenza and rabies. They are unable to share genetic information, as they are far different from each other, said Subbiah. Viruses cannot mix and match from different families and can only assemble parts that they have.
It’s theoretically possible—though extremely difficult—to create a hybrid rabies-influenza virus using modern genetic-engineering techniques, the University of Miami’s Andreansky said.
Can Engineered Zombie Virus be Created?
According to Andreansky, if it was possible to mix the rabies virus transmitted through the air with the measles virus to create personality changes, the encephalitis virus to increase body temperature, and the Ebola virus to bleed from your guts, then we might see the possibility of a virus that has deadly characteristics as of a zombie.
