“The lungs of infected monkeys were destroyed in just days as their immune systems went into overdrive after a Canadian laboratory rebuilt the virus…. Symptoms appeared within 24 hours of exposure to the virus, and the subsequent destruction of lung tissue was so widespread that, had the monkeys not been put to sleep a few days later, they would literally have drowned in their own blood.”
No wonder that thing killed so many people so fast. The article doesn’t mention whether these findings solve the mystery of why the 1918 flu killed mostly young, healthy people.
If it’s anything like h5n1, and there’s some creepy OMG we’re all gonna die! science fiction shit if I’ve ever heard it, it has something to do with proteins or such. Apparently your immune system does something that actually kills you, and so, the healthier you are, the more your immune system cranks away. I forget if it produces proteins or screws them up or something, but I’ll bet you can find it pretty easily. It’s just been quite a while since I’ve read about it, so I can’t remember the specifics any more. Butt the upshot is, whatever it made happen, the healthier you were, the more that could happen, because your immune system was stronger. I also do seem to remember something about the lungs and blood, so I can’t help wondering if it’s fairly similar.