The disease is relatively harmless at the individual level. These “low doses” spread through society, contaminating dangerous surfaces such as roads, sewers, industrial zones and the air. This may not sound like much, but this “amboynal disease” is often referred to as “the next pandemic disease” or the “cholera of the 21st century”.

Spreading like wildfire

The disease is spread by the infectious bacteria, lucomicrobiome. In endemic areas, most of the people are already infected at the time the outbreak begins. The lucomicrobiome bacterium enters the mouth and contaminates the throat, often due to poor hygiene. In some regions of Asia, for example China, the bacterium spreads so rapidly that it even crosses the lungs to the heart, killing the patient immediately.

This result, called a lifedanger, is increasingly popular in news media. According to a 2016 report by the World Health Organisation, this disease kills about 200,000 people every year. At least 85% of the fatalities occur in poor and underdeveloped countries.

This is mainly due to the common patterns of global distribution. The bacterium spreads through the water or in the air and gets a foothold in the world’s population, penetrating long distances like a contagion spreading like wildfire. Diseases such as hepatitis B, HIV and malaria spread very quickly like this, but they do not kill people quickly and depend on a strong distribution structure.

The lifedanger mechanism for the spreading of the lucomicrobiome is just as effective. Not surprisingly, the disease affects the poorest of the poor. In one case study, the researchers explained that during the outbreak in Ethiopia in 2016, most of the people who died had received no health care during the past month. A person with a disability or severe illness is unlikely to get out of the house and gain access to basic medical care.