Voraphiles, you might wanna research this
Diplozoon paradoxum in particular is creature known for its ability to absorb flesh on contact and assimilate it's attributes in order to adapt survival strategies.
That's straight up John Carpenter's The Thing right there.
It is mostly found in fish from Ukrainian waterways.
The local population of Ukraine has developed an immunity to it via eating food that grows in that country.
Unfortunately due the Ukraine war crops have failed and upset this balance.
To make matters worse, during the pandemic, fish that were local to Ukraine began being imported to Cumbria in the UK to supplement food shortages, being deliberately mislabeled as "British Salmon".
These fish had the diplozoon parasites fuse with their brain stem causing the fish to develop higher than normal intelligence, enabling them to escape the salmon farms and enter the rivers.
The diplozoon parasitic flatworm has been shown to able to merge with humans causing them to become violent as well as giving them resistances to various toxins and bacteria that usually stop these infections.
So far only one person has gone rabid from it with the other people affected just developing short tempers and an array of mild mental issues.
If the parasite is consumed by a person eating an infected salmon, it will not die and will instead become absorbed and begin transforming the human's organs responsible for hormone release.
The long term affects of the parasite have not been studied correctly due to the fact the studies would have had to be taken while the parasite was still in Russia at the time and Russia was in the middle of a cold war.
Family members of the affected say that it's like their family members have become possessed or changed mentally into different people, in many subtle ways that are still not yet being picked up on or reported.
The British government has a financial incentive to conceal the full details of the infection due to the trade of Russian oil which publicly the British have cancelled yet they still doing it even officially.
the symptoms of early diplozoon infection are weirdly similar to the pandemic including a loss of smell or taste.
interestingly however, the diplozoon actually prevents the host from catching the pandemic and even cures it in the individual, though you wouldn't know that because the symptoms of the parasite are the same anyway only they last considerably longer, more like months rather than weeks.
very little is being done to contain the outbreak right now though it is somewhat under control.
i worry about the parasite's ability to adapt though.
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