Smallpox, Rabies and Prime Base-start to finish

[tsofian]

I've been thinking about the whole base wiped out by plague trope and would like to work the idea from start to finish. Jeff Crowder has supplied some very helpful advice.
The Project starts planning in the 1960s. At that time smallpox is not only a threat to world health but is also a potential biowarfare agent. Smallpox has no effective specific treatment, but it has a very effective vaccine. During this period smallpox outbreaks were contained by doing “ring vaccinations”. They would vaccinate everyone that came in contact with anyone that had the disease. If all the contacts could be vaccinated quickly enough the disease could be stopped in its tracks. Ring vaccinations were SOP for any smallpox outbreak.
Smallpox vaccine might have a short shelf life, but in MP that can be dealt with using cryonics. So the project early on gets a number (maybe 4-6) of large lots of vaccine. It is standard operating procedure to vaccinate project members against a number of diseases prior to freezing. Most vaccines are active within a week or two, so the vaccines are administered about that amount of time before the freezing, so that the vaccines have a chance to build immunity.
Prime Base maintains a large stock of many vaccines, including smallpox. They also have rabies vaccine. These are for use internally as needed and for distribution to hot spots if required.
By 1988 many people are no longer being vaccinated for smallpox and even people who have been vaccinated may no longer have any immunity, so the plan is that if the base has an exposure they will do the usual thing and vaccinate everyone (this is still how we would handle an outbreak of smallpox if it should suddenly show back up)
So when the base uncorks to help out the locals and a couple of people infected with smallpox get dumped back into the facility they open up the vaccine and run the standard plan. Vaccinate everyone in the base. Then four weeks later symptoms start showing up. It takes a while to figure it out because when you hear hooves you look for horses, not for rabid animals. There shouldn’t be any rabies so why even look for it? By the time its isolated it’s too late. The rabies vaccine can’t help and everyone is going to die.
It’s even worse than that. There is every reason to believe that ALL the lots have been contaminated. It is possible that the ENTIRE frozen project will have a few weeks to live if they are thawed out. The only hope for the project rests with its veterinary teams. These few teams have lots of rabies vaccine. They are placed to deal with animals and animal issues in the post war period. The problem is there were very few such teams. The other problem was Krell knew what the play would be and was had his folks looking for the vet teams, all of which were quickly found and eliminated. Prime Base’s back up plan was to send a message to all the teams saying “You have potentially been infected with rabies. You have three weeks to find viable rabies vaccine, or you will be unable to treat the disease and you will die. Good Luck”

This finally provides a solution to the team that won’t leave the bolt hole or talk to the locals. 

Of course, only the lot at Prime Base was tampered with. The players will start wondering why their characters aren’t foaming at the mouth. . .