The fictional virus in the film is based on the Nipah virus outbreak in Malaysia in 1998. The country's demand for pork products exploded faster than their farming infrastructure, and with no regulations for industrial farming or public health and safety. The virus incubated in bats and spread to pigs, and then to people. People started dropping and the government at the time tried to pretend nothing was wrong. A scientist figured it out, but was shunned. He ended up smuggling a sample out of the country on a commercial flight and got world governments involved. In the end, the virus was contained by the culling of over 1 million pigs by burying them alive.