Infection
Overview
Infections can occur on insufficiently treated or untreated wounds, burns, and frostbite. Infections are the fastest working disease in RimWorld; taking little more than a day to kill the victim if left untended. Animals can also contract infections.
General symptoms include a small amount of pain. Advanced symptoms include a small-moderate amount of pain and a slight loss of consciousness, and shortly after: a loss of consciousness and an excruciating amount of pain, along with a slight loss of breathing. Death follows not long after.
Infections are also unique in that they are visible immediately when contracted. With the majority of the other diseases, there is a slight delay before symptoms kick in. Therefore it's important infected are bedded and treated as soon as possible.
If left untreated, infections can kill in 1.163 days from contraction.
Good treatment will slow the disease to the point where it takes 3 days to kill.
It takes around 1.466 days to develop immunity to an infection; assuming the affected colonist is rested in an ordinary bed for the whole time, has normal blood filtration, is well-fed, and under the age of 40.
Unlike most diseases, as this disease has a specific body part, the disease can be cured simply by amputating the affected body part. Note that it is not possible to amputate an infected head or torso.
Stages
Minor - Severity: 0 - 0.32
- -10% Part efficiency
- +5% Pain
Major - Severity: 0.33 - 0.77
- -30% Part efficiency
- +8% Pain
Extreme (Initial) - Severity: 0.78 - 0.86
- -50% Part efficiency
- +12% Pain
- -5% Consciousness
Extreme (Advanced) - Severity: 0.87 - 0.99
- -70% Part efficiency
- Loss of Consciousness (max 10%)
- +85% Pain
- -5% Breathing
Extreme (Fatal) - Severity: 1
- Death
Progression
- When not immune, severity increases by 0.86 per day.
- When immune, severity decreases by 0.667 per day.
- Immunity increases by 0.62 per day when sick.
- Treatment slows progression by a maximum of 0.53 per day.
- This means that the disease will progress by 0.33 per day at this rate.
Prevention and Treatment
In order to prevent infections, make sure that people and animals that have open wounds are in a clean room when treated in the first place (e.g. no natural flooring apart from rock, no dirt or blood left to stay in the room, etc.). Although a clean room (or indeed sterile) won't fully nullify the chances of a wound getting infected, it will reduce the chance of an infection occurring - and is therefore a worthy precaution to take.
As with any other disease: Make sure that the patient is rested, well-fed, and treated whenever possible. Infections progress very quickly, and missing a treatment can be a very costly mistake. Due to the rate at which they progress; you'll need at least a competent doctor and medicine in order to ensure that the affected person survives their infections.
As a last ditch, if a colonist is about to die, don't hesitate to amputate the affected part. It's better to have a colonist missing a part or two than a dead one.
Treating Normal People (<40 Years Old)
You will need at least 35% average treatment quality to ensure that one doesn't succumb to their infected wound(s).
The following combinations of medicine skill and medicine type are capable of delivering 35% treatment quality; but you'll want to aim higher than this as these combinations are the bare minimum, and aren't guaranteed to work out in your favour (they don't take the doctor's journey or time to administer into account):
- Level 1 Medicine and Glitterworld Medicine
- Level 3 Medicine and ordinary Medicine
- Level 7 Medicine and Herbal Medicine
Treating the Elderly (80+ Years Old)
As usual, older colonists will have weaker immune systems and that translates to a 20% loss in immunity gain speed. You should therefore execute heightened medical protocols to ensure that elderly people with infected wounds make it through the painful process.
To successfully treat an elderly colonist with an infected wound, they'll need to get at least 60% treatment quality on average for their infection. The following list again states the minimum combinations required to achieve this standard of treatment, but you should generally aim higher than these:
- Level 2 Medicine and Glitterworld Medicine
- Level 7 Medicine and ordinary Medicine
- Level 13 Medicine and Herbal Medicine
- Deadly diseases
- Flu • Infection • Lung rot • Malaria • Plague • Sleeping sickness • Organ decay • Blood rot
• Infant illness
- Non-fatal diseases
- Fibrous mechanites • Gut worms • Muscle parasites • Sensory mechanites • Paralytic abasia
- Animal diseases
- Scaria