Unknown Pathogen

The **Unknown Pathogen**, also known as the **Lazarus Virus**,is a viral pathogen that is the primary catalyst for the events in *The Walking Dead by EDStudios* Universe. The pathogen is what caused the end of the Old World and is responsible for bring the dead back to life.

## Overview

> *"We call it the Lazarus Virus. Not that we know it is a 'virus'. It looks like a fungul infection, has a makeup like a bacterium, but the behaviour of a virus. Whatever it is, it invades the brain. It is waterborne and airborne. Thats why everyone has it. Look at this picture...it latches onto the brain stem. When the host dies, the virus, I don't know, 'wakes up' and reactivates the brain stem, all the essential parts...and BAM! You've got yourself a walking corpse with a taste for human flesh,"*
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> **- The Governor explaining the mechanism of the virus**
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Everyone in *The Walking Dead by EDStudios* universe somehow contracted the zombie pathogen that, for reasons and through means unknown, brings the recently deceased back to "life." It is unknown where the disease originated from nor is it known whether if it's a natural or a man-made disease. Scientist Henry Korvac did not even rule out the possibility that the disease is of supernatural origin. The exact taxonomy of the pathogen is also unknown. Curiously, the pathogen itself does not kill its hosts. Instead it remains dormant, likely within in neural cells in the brain, leaving its host visibly and physically healthy. Only when the host dies, does the pathogen become active, infecting and reviving neural structures in the brain stem and certain parts of the cerebellum, turning a human into a zombie. A zombie is thus a condition a recently deceased host enters when the pathogen is in its active stage.

For some unknown reason, only those over the age of eighteen died on the day of the global outbreak, whilst all those under the age survived.

### Transmission Edit

The zombie pathogen seems to possess two separate, but parallel modes of infection: latent and fluid contact/bites/scratches:

* Latent: In *The Walking Dead by EDStudios* universe, most, if not every, human being on the planet is believed to be infected by a dormant strain of the zombie pathogen. It is currently unknown how one contracts the dormant stage of the pathogen, though its apparent total infection rate worldwide suggests it is either air-borne, water-borne, or both. Once infected, the virus spreads throughout the body through the blood, likely concentrating in the central nervous system. However, so long as the host remains alive, the pathogen remains latent or dormant within them and is asymptomatic to the host.
* Fluid Contact/Bites/Scratches: Though physical contact with a zombie's saliva or blood will not cause an individual fatal infection, any fluid contact with open wounds will lead to irreversible contamination of the individual. However, zombie bites are not fatal because of the dormant zombie pathogen. Rather, one possible explanation is that through bites, the active pathogen carried within zombies induces a fatal and irreversible cytokine storm, further exacerbated by bacteria that reside in a zombie's mouth. While zombie scratches and clawing rarely cause fatal infections, the deep gouges generally left by zombie bites are almost always fatal; death can be potentially avoided if the bite is on an appendage, which must be immediately amputated. However, this does not always work, and bites on the torso, or on veins or arteries are universally fatal. Even if an amputation proves successful at removing the infection, blood loss and subsequent infection is also extremely dangerous due to the generally unprofessional execution of the procedure.

## Trivia

* In '*A New World*', individuals such as Lydia have been born after the outbreak that are immune to the disease, with their immune systems able to destroy the virus.
	+ In addition, the FRS has developed a temporary cure for the disease.