Great post. I've always worried about a such a primitive and localized strain incubating in a jungle, cave or something similar where human contact is null. We may not be the intended target of a virus, but without it evolving a preference to it's host, it won't be picky.
That's been largely debunked. There is ample evidence of the genetic chain that led from the version that infects other primates such as monkeys to the mutation that infected us. It most likely came because of the bushmeat trade (monkey and ape flesh, eaten widely in Africa).
Odds are good that viruses and single celled organisms will long outlive us. Who is REALLY the dominant life form on this planet? Hmmm?
So you think viruses and such simply exist to thrive off humans and animals? Like they are at the top of the food chain or something?
Eh food chains are a gross oversimplification. It's more like a food circle. When we die it's bacteria and insects that eat us. Some viruses infect bacteria, some infect plants, some infect animals, including us. Scientists can't even agree if viruses are even 'alive' per se. A virus can only reproduce by infecting a host cell. It then injects its genetic code into the cell, altering it's DNA so it stops doing it's normal duties and instead starts to crank out copies of the virus.
People not taking care of their bodies, and mainly not eating the real food that our bodies have adapted to over millions of years of evolution. I refuse to believe that aging and disease rates have to be as bad as they are. People, well before they even reach old age, would rather live on a steady diet of chocodiles and cheetoes, and refuse their brains access to exercise via new ideas.
From Muffasa, the Lion King. Anyway, a cool idea is the concept of never finding a part of the world, not to say that we've found all the land, but it remained hidden forever. The natives on this land might not have disease, like the native Americans in North America, before Europeans settled.
The Amerinds had disease, where did you get that? They just didn't have some of the ones we brought with us like smallpox. They also brutally murdered each other from time to time. The whole concept of the 'noble savage' is largely one of fiction. They were just as human with the same types of problems and behavior as anyone else, just with a very different culture.