Malgravean Immunodeficiency Disorder

MIDD
Other names	Malgravean Immunodeficiency Disorder
The Cream Ribbon was an awareness symbol for people with MIDD used by the Save the Malgraveans Foundation
Symptoms	Early: Flu-like illnessLater: Large lymph nodes, fever, weight loss
Complications	Opportunistic infections, tumors
Usual onset	Typically puberty though to mid-twenties
Duration	Lifelong
Causes	Genetic (Inherited)
Diagnostic method	Genetic testing
Management	Involves many health specialties
Medication	Gene therapy
Prognosis	Near normal life expectancy with treatment 12 years life expectancy without treatment
Frequency	Eradicated (last wild case 2021)

Malgravean Immunodeficiency Disorder, widely known as MIDD is a congenital disorder endemic to the human population of Malgrave. Immunodeficiency disorders such as MIDD disrupt the body's immune response and make it easy for the victim to acquire secondary infections. A person infected with MIDD did not typically notice any symptoms until adulthood, when the disease moved swiftly into an 'active' stage eradicating the host's immune system in a matter of days. If allowed to progress the disorder rapidly increased the chance of the infected person developing common infections such as violet fever, as well as other opportunistic infections, and tumors which are rare in people who have normal immune function. The disease is also often noted by unintended weight loss.

Treatment

The primary treatment for MIDD from 2021 has been a gene-therapy derived from information from the Crescent Expedition.

History and Characteristics

MIDD was initially thought to be caused by a parasite native to the Malgravean homeland. At the time of the disease's first emergence large areas of land were being brought under cultivation and settlement as the region had been newly-settled by most of the population, and the disease was only affecting immigrants to the territory, only later was it speculated that it had been linked to gene-therapies that had been discovered and allowed the use of gene-locked ancient technology found during the Malgravean nation's foundation; the enthusiasm with which many of the population had taken to these gene-therapies was a product of the desire many felt to establish a national identity, and by the time the first active cases developed many millions had already been exposed.

Although sophisticated for the period, the gene-therapies used to give the Malgravean population a genetic continuity with ancestral human remains found within their homeland were unaware of the complexity of the ancient human species. Known as Ancestors to the Malgraveans, later identified as Alterans, the similarity with modern humans caused a quasi-religious movement to develop around these remains and their structures. It is now known that they were from a human-derived species found throughout the Milky Way Galaxy for many millions of years prior to the development of anatomically modern humans, causing some to speculate their involvement in the evolution of humans, and others to speculate that their species was isolated by a freak time-travel incident establishing them in the past, though research is still ongoing into this matter. Alteran genetics contained inactive genetic material relating to a virus that suppressed the immune system, now believed to be a biological weapon used by one polity within their species upon another (though this is controversial within the Malgravean community as the scientific consensus around it is based on information from the document known as the Book of Atum).

The gene-therapies used by the Malgraveans did provide benefits, including a mild increase in certain measures of cognition, and the ability to use certain Alteran devices, while illnesses associated with them, later classified under the umbrella of MIDD did not develop for almost a generation, meaning that by the time that MIDD was identified the cessation of the use of tainted gene-therapy came too late. A number of treatments were available, as well as complimentary gene-theraputic treatments. Medications used at the time included alpharachloprocide, dyranora levocillin, pro-comorphilix and para-colaxifen. By 2021 the disease was wholly endemic to the Malgraven human population, with 283.9 million living with MIDD. At this peak, MIDD was identified as a primary factor in 4 million deaths per year, reducing the average lifespan of Malgrave notably below regional norms.

Information later discovered by the Crescent Expedition confirmed much of this origin, and it was identified with a plague known to have affected the Alterans which their documentation defined as the Alteran Great Plague. Though the Great Plague's mechanism of transmission was a virus, the research uncovered by the Expedition confirmed that the plague left genetic material in the Alteran population via Horizontal Gene Transfer from the original disease, produced by a group called the Ori. Although the Alterans had cured the virus successfully, remnants of it were present inactive within their DNA afterward, and a complication of the genetic therapy derived from it, allowed some of its deleterious effects to manifest as dominant traits within the Malgravean genome.

This virus was designed to create a low level of supra-normal powers to preserve itself, as the Alterans had great experience with magic in turn, essentially making it a hybrid of infection and curse, while also generating a dependency that has meant that use of counter-magic regions has proven not only ineffectual but directly harmful to attempts to create a cure. This complex protection against counter-magic environments prevented the Great Civilization of the C'tan's efforts to generate a cure in-house from achieving success, while few other interested parties had the genetic knowledge to pinpoint the issues.

Eradication

After the Crescent Expedition was able to access and refurbish a facility used by the Alterans to cure their original Great Plague, the Heralds of History were able to program the facility to provide the data on an updated form of the cure used by the Alterans to resolve the original plague, as a complimentary gene therapy, which allowed the advantages of the original gene therapy to be retained by recipients, but to also correct the disease, once again rendering the genetic form of the virus into an inert state within the genome, essentially making it part of the Non-coding DNA of the Malgravean population.

The main complexity of providing this genetic-therapy was to provide the correct genetic sequences, which the facility discovered by the Heralds of History was uniquely capable of doing, as its computers still retained information on the ancestral form from which it was derived. Initial trials over three months were successful in showing a complete regression of the disease, and substantial resources by the state-industrial MalPha consortium were applied to providing the gene-therapy to every afflicted Malgravean.