Captain Trips Virus (Project Blue Virus)

The Captain Trips Virus is one of the main plot points featured in Stephen King's novel "The Stand", which was later adapted into a miniseries. The virus, which was being developed as a bio-weapon at a top-secret military base in the California desert, is accidentally released, killing everyone on the base, but not before base security guard Charles Campion and his family escape. However, they are unaware that they are already infected with the virus, setting into motion the events of the "The Stand".

The Captain Trips virus is a weaponized version of the common flu. With a 99.4% communicability rate, the virus starts out with symptoms similar to that of the common cold, causing nasal congestion, weariness, coughing and sneezing. However, as the virus progresses, victims begin to suffer from physical pain, worsening fever, swelling and delirium. The virus was engineered to constantly shift and change in molecular structure, making most medicines useless against it. Even strong medicines only succeed in staving-off the inevitable. With a 100% mortality rate, the virus is deadly to anyone who catches it, and certain death is the only probable outcome for the majority of patients.

The virus was being engineered at a top-secret U.S. Department of Defense base under the a top-secret program known as "Project Blue". The virus is accidentally released after a containment breach, which ultimately kills all of the staff, as well as wiping out entire families living on the base. Charles Campion, a base security guard, realizes what's happened, and flees the base with his wife and infant daughter. However, all three of them are already infected with the deadly superflu. Campion's wife and daughter succumb to the illness and die along the journey back to their Texas home. Charles eventually becomes too sick to keep his car on the road, and crashes into a gas station in Arnette, Texas, but not before one of the gas station employees, Stuart Redman, shuts the pumps off. The gas station attendants and ambulance workers are all infected as they transfer the dying Campion from his car to the hospital, except Redman, who is strangely immune to the virus. Captain Trips uncontrollably spreads from there, as the U.S. military attempts to quarantine the town of Arnette. The virus manages to spread worldwide, and kills 99.4% of the world's population within a month of the start of the outbreak.

There is no cure or vaccine for the Captain Trips virus.