These diseases sometimes kill at a 90% rate. But I never hear of what happens to the few survivors. Do they ever fully recover from such horrible diseases? What about some of the other killer diseases like plague, anthrax, etc.?
Unless you’re lucky enough to be infected with one of the strains of Ebola that’s non-lethal to humans, no. Ebola and Marburg cause massive damage to virtually every organ in the body (which is why they have such high fatality rates), and if you survive, you’re looking at such fun things as severe liver damage, crapped-out kidneys, cardiopulmonary problems, blindness, and brain-damage, to begin with. You may survive, but what’s left of you will pretty much have gone through the meat grinder.
Interestingly, this cite says complete recovery is possible in some patients. I wouldn’t have thought that.
Sometimes, but as you can see here from the CDC, typical mortality rates in large Ebola outbreaks are more in the 50-70% range. The highest mortality rate was 88% in the first outbreak.
That’s still a hellaciously huge mortality rate.
More to the point - are these survivors now immune to these viruses?
I don’t know that immunity has ever been tested, but I do know that infected patients have been successfully treated on occasion by injecting them with plasma from recovered patients.
Yes, it is. But my point was that there are a significant number of people out there that have come down with these diseases and fully recovered. It’s not like there are just one or two freaks out there that miraculously pulled through.