Common Cold

Common Cold is a disease that has long affected humans and has been brought with their populations into space.

Description / Specifications

The Common Cold, also known simply as a cold, is a viral infectious disease of the upper respiratory tract that primarily affects the nose. The throat, sinuses, and larynx may also be affected. Signs and symptoms may appear less than two days after exposure to the virus. These may include coughing, sore throat, runny nose, sneezing, headache, and fever. People usually recover in seven to ten days, but some symptoms may last up to three weeks.

Well over 800 virus strains had been implicated in causing the Common Cold by 1100, with rhinoviruses still being the most common. They spread through the air during close contact with infected people or indirectly through contact with objects in the environment, followed by transfer to the mouth or nose. Risk factors include going to child care facilities, not sleeping well, and psychological stress. The symptoms are mostly due to the body's immune response to the infection rather than to tissue destruction by the viruses themselves.

Complications

Communities that have had long isolation from the mainstream of Humaniti can both harbour new strains and remove resistance to strains in common circulation in Charted Space. Occasionally those with other health problems or no natural resistance may develop pneumonia.

Cure

There is no vaccine for the common cold because of the wide range of strains of underlying virus and the mutation rate of those strains. The primary methods of prevention are handwashing; not touching the eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands; and staying away from sick people. Some evidence supports the use of face masks.

Most forms of Common Cold Infection are susceptible to many forms of antiviral drugs. antibiotics have no effect.

History & Background / Dossier

This disease has been around since the dawn of Humaniti.

Redeye Plague (famous for the outbreak in Core Sector in 29) is an unusually fatal variety of this disease.

References & Contributors / Sources

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Common_cold. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. The text of Wikipedia is available under the Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Far Future Enterprises or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Author and Contributor: BackworldTraveller