I've caught HMHVV..., I don't want to be Uncle Festor Options

[20thCenturyFox]

... It was a priceless moment ... the team were very happy that they decimated a pack of ghouls stealing bodies from Maximus's Chop Shop. The assassin had hid inside a hanging body bag (!), and a ferret drone with a LMG was covered in the corner. The ghouls sneaking up through the 'fluid' floor drains didn't stand a chance ...

During a recent run the team assassin was splashed across the face with Ghoul blood twice (thanks to a trigger happy rigger with a LMG) and also scratched in melee combat. There's a very good chance that when he makes his body roll to resist the virus he'll fail and contract the Kreiger strain of HMHVV.

I believe that the disease is 'treatable' within thirty days, but i can't find details on the costs, technique etc.

Can anyone point me in the direction of a previous thread on the matter or have any ideas concerning how the disease would be treated? I'm assuming the poor fool will require immediate gene therapy but it might be more simple than that... but if so how much would the character be up for? How long would the process take.

Does he have a chance to avoid become uncle festor?

[Herald of Verjig...]

[spotlite]

page 33, SRC, Infection, para 2&3 is about the stages of disease and the thirty day period. All it says is if it is detected within 30 days of infection it can be treated. It does not say how, or what the effects might be, so that's up to you. On that page is also the success stages - i.e. how many successes on the body test = what effect. You need two to escape unscathed.

EDIT: so I read the original post again. And I'll suggest some ideas on treatment!

1. take it as it implies in the book - treatment can be applied, meaning cured for good, no problem. If you suspect you've been inspected, get to a hospital if you have a SIN or a good street doc if you don't, and get your jab. Problem solved. Cost minimal, maybe even free for public health reasons depending on where you are.

2. paranoid response: Immediate quarantine of the clinic where the character has been, immediate testing of anyone they've come into contact with. Full police report into where the infection happened and the circumstances and a full Bio hazard and culling expedition. The jab is applied, and the victim is isolated for 30 days to make sure. Treatment costs are passed on to the patient or their HMO, and are quite high, as all the other measures which were taken have to be paid for.

3. Liberal - Medical professionals maybe don't feel the same way about ghouls as the general population and law, and are sympathetic. They apply the jab, or prescribe the anti-viral agents, suggest the character is very careful about bodily fluids for the next fortnight and come back. Character is charged for the treatment, but the price is in the hundreds or tens of nuyen not thousands.

4. What freakin' cure? Yeah, you can be treated so you don't express as a ghoul, but you're always a carrier. You now have no rights. Step this way, animal.


Your call!

[Nikoli]

I know of a fast and painless cure for HMHVV, only costs about 6 :nuyen:.

[Shanshu Freeman]

[Nikoli]

For a room ful , it's 90 :nuyen:, but there's no garuntees on painless for teh ones in the corners.

[Foreigner]

Ah, yes.

The old "cure the disease by killing the patient" approach.

No offense meant, but I'm glad you aren't a Participating Physician in my HMO, Nikoli. :)

--Foreigner

[Nikoli]

Just wait till HMO's become megacorps, then you'll wish I was. :cyber:

[durthang]

[Nikoli]

Not to mention, take a look at the Charter for FEMA when you get a chance, that is typically the modus operandi in situations as serious as a high infectious, often fatal easily transferable disease. Burn it down, deny questions later.

[Shanshu Freeman]

[Crusher Bob]

Simple ethical calculus.

And with HMVV you can't just keep 'em alive 'in case you find a cure', since they'll need to be chewing on people while you do that. Either make a cure or get rid of the carriers.

Considering how many mutant strains of HMVV (all lethal for *somebody*) have cropped up in a 20 years period, I'd expect some serious repressions from FEMA/CDC before the things mutates into an airborne version.

[spotlite]

carriers don't need to munch on people, so there's no reason to kill them, you just have to isolate them to protect others. If they have no SIN, sure, the authorities probably just pop 'em and burn 'em, but if they have a SIN, they just can't get away with that unless you're on extra-territorial turf.

[Nikoli]

With our modern government you would be right. We're talking about a time when the government practically asks megacorp permission to hold an election. Individuals have almost no protection of their rights, because the government is not in control anymore.
In our society, the equivalent of the SINless still have a voice and legal protection under the law. In SR timeline, anyone can do what ever they want to the SINless, beccause nobody with power gives a devil rat's ass about them, they have no power, no legal rights and no voice. They are the wretched refuse to be exploited, used, maimed, killed, or worse just for teh sake of a corps stock to go up a billionth of a point.

[spotlite]

nikoli, you talking to me or to Crusher? Cos it sounds like you're arguing with me over something we agree on...

SINless would just get whacked, I agree.

But people with SINs have rights - a carrier only, rather than a full blown Infected, would not be killed out of turn the same way they wouldn't execute a person with a SIN who contracted VITAS. They would isolate them until the danger had passed, or if necessary permanently, but they wouldn't disappear them because they have rights and if the mediacorps get hold of the story they're screwed, and sued, into the ground, and governments don't like that, its bad for elections. you're right that in some places the governments aren't in control any more and it could be argued (and has been, many times) that its true globally. but if you read all the available source material on governments and politics (including the printed adventures) you'll see that places like the UCAS still do retain a lot of their power. I don't think a Ghoul carrier would be any different in places like that to anyone else with a highly infectious and dangerous disease - they get isolated, not executed.

E.g. In England in 2060 I think you are considered a full blown ghoul with no rights, SIN immediately invalidated, regardless of whether you are truely Infected or just a carrier and they'll probably just shoot you. In the UCAS I very much doubt it would be treated the same way. From the literature I know carriers usually end up becoming outcasts living with ghouls, but I'd guess that's because its that or be locked up forever by normal society. The full ghouls are all outcast because they're a shoot on site job for law enforcement, but not carriers I wouldn't have thought. I really don't think the government would execute a carrier who possessed a SIN. But I certainly think a corp would if they caught a carrier on their turf. As I said - they're on extraterritorial turf.

But this is all imo, because I don't think they've every published a treaties on the laws and practices concerning Ghouls, 2060!

It would make a cool book though - "Target:Ghoul Nation, covering the african enclaves and nations as well as ghoul interactions with society the rest of the world over, from legal issues to sympathetic agencies, from the Chicago colony in the CZ to the nomadic ghoul tribes of siberia (I'm just making it up now), this book covers all you need to know about those foul flesh feeders with halitosis we all love to fear, Ghouls..."

[BitBasher]

[Siege]

Bit -- could you point me towards the pages supporting your position?

My GM holds the popular view and I'd be interested in swaying him the other way.

-Siege

[Jari_Kafghan]

While I don't have the refferances handy Bit is right on the fact that META's are humans with rights et al. Ghouls aren't. Ghouls occasionally have privledges, but no inherant rights in UCAS or any of the other north american states. and in the NAN nations are considered animals pure and simple.

[ShadowPhoenix]

I believe the Sinless having rights comment comes from the New Seattle Source, don't have the references handy(at work) but I believe I saw it there, if I go home and find the page, I'll post it up for you guys :) now Ghouls, are worse than sinless, they are sinless and a threat to metahumanity, thus unless treatable, they are potential victims of severe prejudice :D

[Nikoli]

If the person in question was detected early enough to treat the disease, then sure, someone with a SIN could be spared, cured, etc. But if what I have heard posted on this thread is true, then after 30 days, regardless of SIN existence, I would imagine the infected become non-persons in the eyes of any government outside of the ghoul nation.
Now, someone that is merely a carrier would be almost impossible to find immediately. It took months to find typhoid marry, of course epidemiology has come a long way since then, it might take only a few days or a week at worst to find someone that was not actively hiding. But as far as the SINless go, sure, technically they have rights or are supposed to, but given the choice for a lone star officer, who do you think he'd rather shoot first? The guy in the nice suit whose taxes pay his meager salary or the guy in street leathers who has never paid taxes in his life that nobody with authority will miss?