From:	Jaimie Nicholson <jaimie.nicholson@********.OTAGO.AC.NZ>
Subject:	Re: SIGA
Date:	Thu, 8 May 1997 11:43:25 +1200

>>>>>[Yeah, Flux, but it's got to have changed the way people reacted to
them.

And that thing about the Loup-Garou... I don't buy that it's HMHVV... if
you can transmit by touch but not by air, then I doubt that it could be any
sort of virus... they aren't found on the skin of those they infect unless
they get sneezed out there, and couldn't get through the skin of the
touched person anyway (unless he/she licked him/herself later). Given the
rumoured 100% touch:infection ratio, it being a virus doesn't seem likely.

It could be a bacterial species that can live on the skin (there are a
large number like this), and that becomes pathogenic when and if it fights
it's way inside the host (not unlike many of the skin's normal microflora,
e.g. _Staphlococcus_aureus_). This doesn't seem all that likely though
either, it's hard to introduce a new organism to an existing microflora.

I haven't had any experience with Loup-Garou infection though, so I'm
limited to hypothesising, and in a wild manner, at that. For all I know,
it's an astral organism that attaches to the victim's aura, and you get
transmission when the auras of victim and new victim meet.]<<<<<
-- Troglobyte <17:26:47/05-07-58>