Sleeping sickness

Sleeping sickness is a parasitic disease that can only be caught in the tropics, either Rainforests or Swamps. Sleeping Sickness is a very slow disease to develop and also gain immunity to, so affected pawns will remain in bed for a long time.

Overview

General symptoms include slightly impaired consciousness and manipulation, a small amount of pain, and eventually occasional vomiting. Advanced symptoms include a small to moderate amount of pain, more adversely affected consciousness and manipulation, more frequent vomiting, eventually a loss of consciousness, and finally, death.

If sleeping sickness is left untreated, it will kill the affected colonist in around 8.333 days from discovery. Good treatment can slow the disease to the point where it takes up to 20 days to kill. It takes around 8.47 days to develop immunity to sleeping sickness, assuming the patient is rested in an ordinary bed for the whole time, and under the age of 40.

Diseases can place a long-term strain on medical supplies. Planting healroot or making other long-term plans might be wise at the first sign of this disease.

Prevention

Penoxycyline prevents colonists from falling sick to the Sleeping sickness but does nothing to stop an infection already in progress.

Stages

Minor (Initial) - Severity: 0 - 0.4374

• +2% Pain
• -2% Consciousness
• -2% Manipulation

Minor (Advanced) - Severity: 0.4375 - 0.624

• +3% Pain
• -4% Consciousness
• -4% Manipulation

Major - Severity: 0.625 - 0.874

• Vomiting every 3.5 days (84 hours) on average
• +5% Pain
• -15% Consciousness
• -6% Manipulation

Extreme (Initial) - Severity: 0.875 - 0.9374

• Vomiting every 1.75 days (42 hours) on average
• +10% Pain
• -20% Consciousness
• -20% Manipulation

Extreme (Advanced) - Severity: 0.9375 - 1

• Vomiting every day (24 hours) on average
• Maximum 10% Consciousness
• +15% Pain
• -20% Manipulation
• Death

Progression

• When not immune, severity increases by 0.12 per day.
• When immune, severity decreases by 0.176 per day.
• Immunity increases by 0.11 per day when sick.
• Treatment slows progression by a maximum of 0.07 per day.
  • This means the disease will progress by 0.05 per day at 100% treatment.

Treatment

Even though sleeping sickness is a slow disease, it isn't as difficult to treat compared to malaria and the plague. Treatment is administered once every 32 hours. However, you should still follow standard protocols and ensure that patients of Sleeping Sickness are rested at all times, well-fed, and promptly treated when they need to be treated.

A well-fed pawn with 100% Immunity Gain Speed that constantly rests on a proper bed technically doesn't need to get treated. This isn't recommended - if they get up for a snack, for example, then the disease will progress quicker.

Vulnerable

For those with a base immunity gain rate of 36% or less, it will be very difficult to survive sleeping sickness. This includes people well past their Life Expectancy, and/or people with severe kidney and liver damage. Even with 100% treatment quality for all treatments and rest in a hospital bed with a vitals monitor connected, they will die without extra care. To save the colonist, you can do one or more of the following:

• Tend with glitterworld medicine
• Administer healer mech serum - instantly treats the disease
• Administer luciferium
• Perform an organ transplant for pawns with damage to their liver or kidneys.
• Install detoxifier kidneys. these improve immunity gain speed by 2.5% each. Prioritize installing detoxifier kidneys on already damaged kidneys.
• Install up to two immunoenhancers for 8% per enhancer installed. Note that these require a kidney to be present for them to be installed into, so a transplant might be required if they are missing. Damaged kidneys are sufficient however.
• Use the medic cycle of a Biosculpter pod.
• Use the preach health ability on the effected person
• Use the medical specialist's immunity drive
• Place the patient in a cryptosleep casket until you have one of the above.

Version history

In 1.0 treatment above 53% quality used to be able to cause the disease to regress; if applied early enough, it could cause the disease to vanish entirely.

In 1.1, disease progression was significantly accelerated, and treatment no longer causes disease to regress. In addition, in a minor update of 1.1, immunity gain was boosted, such that colonists can survive without treatment as long as they remain in bed.

References

• African trypanosomiasis, also known as African sleeping sickness or simply sleeping sickness in real life

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Disease

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