Solanum is a fictional virus which turns people into zombies in The Zombie Survival Guide and World War Z novel. It is highly infectious, incurable and gives its victims mysterious properties. Although Solanum outbreaks are as old as humanity, the largest outbreak halved the human population, crashed the global economy and either outright destroyed or massively transformed many societies. Solanum is most extensively described in the first chapter of The Zombie Survival Guide.
The Virus
Solanum is a fluid-based virus which enters the brain via the bloodstream. It uses the cells in the frontal lobe of the brain to replicate itself while destroying said cells, killing the host by stopping the heart and causing widespread organ shutdowns. The virus keeps the brain alive but dormant, and the virus mutates it into a new organ, no longer requiring energy, water or oxygen. The new brain can use but is not dependent on the hosts old body, which can now withstand extreme heat, cold, pressure and pain.
Source
The original source of the Virus is unknown, the first recorded case comes from Central Africa, whilst Patient Zero of the global outbreak was in a rural Chinese village. No isolated sample of the Solanum virus has ever been recorded in nature. Despite extensive research of soil, water and air samples from every ecosystem, additionally, no samples have been found in any animal and plant specimen. Many different explanation stories have been offered to explain this, from a government conspiracy, a military experiment gone wrong, organisms from outer-space, an unknown ecosystem or the wrath of god to punish humanity for various sins.
Symptoms
Within the first hour, there is immediate pain, discolouration and blood clotting around the infected area. Within five hours, the victim feels joint pain, a strong fever, chills and has slight dementia. Within 8 hours, dementia has become severe, the fever becomes stronger and they lose muscle coordination. Within 11 hours, the lower body is paralyzed and the victim feels very numb. Within 16 hours, they fall into a coma. Within 20 hours, they are killed by a stopped heart and within 23 hours reanimation occurs. Time may vary depending on the health of the victim, infected area and weather conditions.
Transference
The Solanum Virus is 100% communicable and fatal. It is transferred by fluid contact from an infected body, usually through biting or scratches, but it has also been known to occur from kissing, sexual activity, blood tranfers and organ donations.
Cross-Species Infection
The Solanum Virus can only reanimate humans, and animals which are infected are killed before reanimation, and parasitic insects like mosquitos will instinctively refuse to bite infected blood cells.
Treatment
The Solanum Virus has no known cure or treatment besides rapid amputation of an infected limb (with only a 10% success rate). The best thing a victim can do is commit suicide in a way that destroys their brain.
Reanimating The Already Deceased
It is impossible to reanimate an already diseased body with Solanum since not only will zombies ignored rotting flesh but a stagnant bloodstream resulting from a stopped heart means the virus has no way of accessing the brain.
List of known outbreaks
60,000BCE - Cave paintings and skeletons in a cave in Central Africa depict zombies.
3,000BCE - An Egyptian tomb was discovered to have a zombie in it.
500BCE - Carthagian navigators discover zombies deep on the African continent.
329BCE - Russian Special Forces find a vase depicting zombies during Alexander The Great's conquest of the area.
212BCE - A banned Chinese medical manuscript found in the wall of a long-dead scholar gives a description of zombies and a guide to combatting them.
121AD - A large zombie outbreak destroys several villages in Scotland but they are defeated by the Roman Army, leading to the construction of Hadrian's Wall.
140-41AD - Six outbreaks are recorded in Roman North Africa, soldiers kill them all.
156 - A zombie outbreak occurs in a roman village and is destroyed by soldiers, historians dismiss it as an anti-roman riot.
177 - A zombie tries to attack a roman village in France but is killed by soldiers.
700s - A painting found in Northern Holland shows a group of knights slaughtering zombies.
850 - There is a large zombie outbreak in Saxony, which the peasants survive by hiding in castles. It is blamed on a lack of faith in the Jewish population.
1073 - Researchers in Jerusalem begin researching zombies found in a jail.
1253 - A viking colony in Greenland is overrun by zombies.
1281 - Marco Polo sees a zombie head in the palaca of Kublai Khan, who claims it was given to him by Genghis Khan in his travels.
1523 - Spanish priests and explorers in Oaxaca are warned by natives not to find the zombies.
1579 - Francis Drake found an island filled with zombies in the Pacific while trying to circumnavigate the world.
1583 - A group of cossacks in Siberia enslaved and villagers and later ate them. After eating zombie meat, they turning into them and killed each-other.
1587 - The British colony on Roanake island in what will become the US is consumed by zombies.
1611 - A Portuguese merchant discovered the existence of a secret samurai order which kill zombies in Japan.
1690 - A danish ship found a Portuguese ship full of zombies drifting in the ocean which they destroyed with cannon fire.
1762 - The Carribean island of St Lucia experienced a large zombie outbreak which was put down by free slaves. They were reenslaved by colonial authorities who wrote it off as a slave uprising.
1807 - There is a zombie outbreak in a mental institution in France, the government says it was a case of mass insanity.
1824 - A British expedition in South Africa finds a Zulu warrior clan using zombies as a ritual fight.
1839 - A European explorer mapping the Nile River claims to have found a village infested with zombies.
1848 - A group of settlers dissapear in Wyoming, after they were overrun by zombies while on the trail.
1852 - American treasure hunters in Chiapas, Mexico found a man gagged while exploring Mayan Ruins, they release the man who attacks and kills them all.
1867 - A British steam ship finds a nearby abandoned ship which they find zombies on, which infect a crew member. They dock at Perth and the governor doesn't believe them, the ship accidently leaves port and crashes somewhere in Western Australia, releasing the zombies into the wild.
1882 - An abandoned mine is found filled with dead, starved children after they tried to survive a zombie outbreak.
1888 - A small mining town in Washington is overrun by zombies, only to be saved by a Lakota warrior who saw the Knudhasen massacre and hunts zombies across the US.
1893 - French Soldiers in North Africa hold out in a fortress under siege from zombies for three years. They are arrested after they escape.
1901 - The US Navy finds a Taiwanese village infested with zombies, they are discharged from the Navy after reporting the story.
1905 - Hunters in German East Africa claim to have seen zombies.
1911 - A Louisana town is overrun by zombies from the nearby swamp, the US government dismisses this as a race riot.
1913 - A Dutch scientist finds a zombie infested village in Suriname and researches the disease, calling it 'Solanum'.
1923 - A British pilot in Sri Lanka claims to have seen a zombie in Mount Everest, upon taking it on his plane to take it to Britain, it rose up and attacked the crew, crashing the plane in the ocean. The pilot died mysteriously the next day.
1942: Japanese soldiers find a Pacific Island infested with zombies.
1942-45 - The Imperial Japanese Army and Navy conduct research on zombies in Manchuria and try to weaponise it by deploying them by plane or submarine, all attempts fail.
1943 - A US Army plane lands in a small town in Algeria and finds it filled with dead zombies.
1947 - A small Canadian town suffers an outbreak which is suppressed by armed citizens, it is dismissed as an unexplainable act of public violence.
1954 - A french businessmen claims to have seen zombie cage fights in the slums of Vietnam.
1957 - A captured Kenyan rebel from the Mau Mau Uprising claims to have seen zombified British soldiers during the war.
1960 - Researchers at a remote military science lab suffer a zombie outbreak, despite many people surviving the incident, it is destroyed by a nuclear bomb and the Russian government says it was a routine nuclear test.
1962 - A farm in Nevada is discovered to have several zombie corpses, the incident is still under investigation.
1968 - A Laotian village is discovered to be infested with zombies by US Soldiers, who destroy it with a napalm strike.
1971 - Environmental photographers in an African jungle hear distant, zombie-like moaning.
1975 - An egyptian village is overrun by zombies and jointly defeated by Israeli and Egyptian soldiers, leading to a period of peace between the two hostile powers. Israel and Egypt deny the incident ever occured.
1979 - A town in Alabama is attacked by a horde of zombies leading to the town defending itself with guns and barricades, the episode is dismissed as it is assumed to be a case of mass hysteria stemming from water poisioning.
1980 - A string of zombie attacks occurs in Brazilian villages, the government dismisses it as an anti-government uprising.
1984 - A blood transfusion containing Solanum leads to chaos in an Arizona hospital room and is covered up by the government.
1987 - Zombie attacks at a nuclear power plant in China is dismissed as an anti-government riot.
1992 - Zombie attacks a camping couple in rural California, it is dismissed as a murder-suicide.
1993 - String of attacks in California in an elementary school and sewer. The attacks are either denied by the government or dismissed as gang warfare.
1994 - Zombies are detected in Los Angeles and briefly attack a harbour and several fisherman. Despite dozens of witnesses, the police deny the incident and victims are afraid to speak out.
1996 - The Indian Army detects a zombie crossing the border with Pakistan, it is presumed to be a Pakistani soldier and shot by snipers when it is presumed to be an attack.
1998 - The Cossack zombie attacks a documentary team, leading to a small crew surviving for three days in a small barn in rural Siberia. Despite the whole event being caught on camera, it is dismissed as a hoax and the Russian government denies the incident.
2001 - Small Solanum outbreak in a Morrocan fishing village, the zombies are tied up and dumped in the nearby ocean.
2002 - Zombie washes up on the shore of St Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, it is killed by police.
2006-18 - The first global zombie outbreak. It more than halves the global population, destroys the global economy and either massively transforms or destroys many countries.