Chapter 85 ETO Prion Virus? _1

Qin Ming stepped into the hospital room, and the cardiac monitor at the head of the bed caught his eye; all vital signs seemed quite stable.

In the room stood a male doctor and a nurse, with the other beds empty except for Liu Yueyue's—all alone in the room.

"Hello, nurse, I'm Liu Yueyue's relative."

The voice from the direction of the door reached their ears, and both turned to look.

Seeing how young Qin Ming was, the nurse asked doubtfully, "You're her relative?"

"My name is Liu Ming, her younger brother."

The resemblance between the two was noticeable, mainly because both had striking appearances, convincing them somewhat.

Qin Ming's gaze moved away from the nurse and picked up the phone on the bedside table. The phone's contact list had only five people, including two girls' names, Mom and Dad, and Qin Ming.

"No one else's phone number goes through?"

"Yes, yours was the only one that connected," the nurse nodded in confirmation.

Indeed, no wonder the call came to me.

Qin Ming thought, glancing over at the bed at Liu Yueyue, then turned to the doctor and asked:

"What's the situation with my sister now?"

The doctor, who was busy writing something down, answered upon hearing the brother of the patient:

"We haven't identified the cause yet, but her vital signs are stable. Don't worry, your sister shouldn't be in any serious trouble."

"For specifics, we'll have to wait until she wakes up. Only then can we carry out further examinations to determine the problem."

Qin Ming continued to inquire:

"What about the others? I heard outside the door you saying there have been quite a few similar incidents recently. Haven't you found the cause?"

Hearing this, the doctor about to leave the room changed his expression, as if recalling some unpleasant matters.

His face went from white to pale, and a few seconds later, he forced a wry smile:

"The patients woke up quickly, feeling fine, and many refused to cooperate with the examinations, thinking that we doctors were just trying to scam money from them."

"Ah, so few patients truly understand us."

The male doctor shook his head and sighed, then left the room.

No sooner had the doctor left than Qin Ming's telekinesis completed its scan.

After experiences in multiple worlds, he had acquired cellular-level telekinesis and a wealth of knowledge about the human body, making him the ultimate combination of top-notch doctor and medical diagnostic equipment.

Qin Ming instantaneously pinpointed the problem—Liu Yueyue had suffered nerve cell damage in her brain; her entire nervous system exhibited varying degrees of harm.

Parts of the brain's nerve cells had developed a spongy appearance, though the damage was still minor. Ordinary MRI scans could not detect it, yet it had already caused coma symptoms.

Besides the nerve cells, everything else was normal, with the numbers of white blood cells, macrophages, lymphocytes, and eosinophils within the normal range.

There hadn't been an increase or elevation in the number of immune cells, which represented a severe problem: the immune system hadn't detected it.

Despite the presence of disease within the body, the immune system, as the body's defense force, had not responded at all.

Normally, this situation is impossible, as the invasion of the vast majority of pathogens causes an intense reaction from the body.

It wasn't a virus, radiation, or any detectable pathogenic bacteria, fungi, parasites, or chlamydia. With only neurons damaged and other cells left unharmed, the only pathogen that fit these symptoms was one: a prion virus.

To be precise, a prion is not a virus but a misfolded protein that prompts other normally functional proteins to fold incorrectly in the same way. Upon contact, they adopt its shape, triggering a domino effect among neurons and destroying the cells of the nervous system.

This disease was first discovered in the 1950s by the adventurer and medical researcher Gajdusek in the Fore tribe, an indigenous group, where he found a peculiar sickness among the people. Those affected often showed symptoms such as joint pain, general weakness, difficulty walking, trembling, memory loss, and dementia.

Gajdusek examined the water and food and found no issues; he eventually discovered it was due to a tribal custom. After someone died, the tribe would partake in their flesh, and the prion would spread hidden within the meat. Because of its unique structure, ordinary cooking methods like boiling, steaming, or stir-frying couldn't kill or destroy it.

The prion virus is relatively rare and has weak transmissibility. Ordinary contact with infected individuals generally does not result in infection, as the virus mainly resides in the central nervous system. There are two main routes of transmission: one is through the digestive tract, and the other is through iatrogenic means, such as organ transplants.

Depending on each person's physique, the incubation period can vary from several years to several decades. Once the disease develops, the majority of patients die within one or two months, and no one has survived longer than a year. The mortality rate is 100%.

However, Liu Yueyue's symptoms were not typical of prion virus infections, and were in fact quite different.

No wonder these doctors hadn't considered this possibility, and with tense doctor-patient relations, many patients were unwilling to cooperate with these tedious examinations.

Ordinary examination methods such as blood and urine tests cannot detect it; only through routine cerebrospinal fluid analysis and biochemical tests, electroencephalogram studies, and combined Magnetic Resonance Imaging of the head, followed by careful analysis, is it possible to diagnose prion disease. This also increases the difficulty of making a diagnosis.

Although Qin Ming was almost 90% sure in his heart, he could not be certain because telekinesis could not directly detect the presence of the prion virus.

He would know soon enough whether it was the prion virus or not.

Through telekinesis, Qin Ming could see that Liu Yueyue's bladder was full of urine, and the doctors had not inserted a catheter.

She was about to wet the bed.

Using telekinesis, Qin Ming constricted the urethra before pretending to be clueless, circling the bed once before turning to the nurse and saying,

"How does my sister go to the bathroom?"

The nurse slapped her forehead:

"Oh, I almost forgot to tell you about that."

"Go buy a pack of adult diapers, and then I can help her put one on."

"Okay, sure, thank you."

...

Qin Ming went downstairs to the outpatient billing counter on the ground floor to pay, then entered the small supermarket next to the hospital. The supermarket sold not only the drinks, alcoholic beverages, snacks, etc., commonly found in convenience stores, but also wheelchairs, adult diapers, and various medical devices.

After experiencing the Biohazard Crisis World, the range of his telekinetic coverage increased tenfold from one hundred meters to a radius of one kilometer.

While buying diapers in the supermarket, he used his telekinesis to remove necrotic and damaged neural cells and transfer them into the girl's bladder. He also attempted to stimulate her into waking up.

Under the stimulation of telekinesis, the girl finally woke up.

"Is this a hospital?" Liu Yueyue opened her eyes groggily, unable to recall what had happened, feeling only a headache.

"What happened to me?"

Since the family members had temporarily left and the nurse was still standing by her side,

"Sister, you've finally woken up,"

"What happened?"

"You fainted on the street; a Good Samaritan called 120 and brought you to our hospital."

The nurse was about to say more when, catching sight of someone at the door, she said with a smile:

"Your brother has returned."

"Then I'll be going now," she said.

The nurse hurried away, thinking that the adult diaper was a wasted purchase and that she better leave quickly to avoid being asked for a refund later.

Having dealt with unreasonable and difficult relatives of patients before, she had developed a subconscious reflex.

"Brother?"

Liu Yueyue was still somewhat confused and was about to ask questions, but then saw a mosquito perched on her arm, sucking blood. She held her breath and watched intently, attempting to smack it with her hand, only for it to dodge away and fly off.

Looking up again, she saw the familiar young man standing beside her, holding a package.