/tags/encasement/Recent content in Encasement on Gromet's Plaza ArchiveHugoen-usTue, 14 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000/stories/2006/11/14/the-epidemic/Tue, 14 Nov 2006 00:00:00 +0000/stories/2006/11/14/the-epidemic/<p>The author wishes to thank B3=s Wendy, Latex Elf, Lanky in Latex, and others from Rubber Pal for their generous help with ideas and inspiration.</p> <p>The epidemic was raging, striking one community after another. While it seemed to affect only a minority of the people, those who did catch the disease had more than a 30% mortality rate. Since its first appearance a couple of years earlier, the scientific and medical communities had been struggling to find treatments or vaccines. There had been only limited success until a few months ago when a lab in the UK had discovered how to make a vaccine based on antibodies taken from survivors who had caught the disease and recovered from it. The main problem was that the antibody concentration in blood and other body fluids was too low to produce commercial quantities of vaccine.</p>