Transmissible diseases in a multi-species society

My world - basically Earth all along, unless told otherwise - is populated by humans and few fantasy-based "races" (actually, species - any interbreed offspring, if possible, is infertile): elves, dwarves, etc. Despite the fact that setting is to some extent inspired by common fantasy tropes, there is no magic at all, just hard science. All "fantasy species" in fact belong to the same Homo genus and should be plausibly justified as the effects of natural evolution of (perhaps isolated) groups of hominids.

All of these species keep at least some contact with each other, sometimes even living together in one city.

How likely is that somebody will get infected with a disease from a member of another "race"? I know that most of the diseases are rather species-specific, but there are some exceptions (afaik HIV originates from apes).

Will halflings be just ok when the plague is decimating human communities? Can a dwarf get infected by human HIV or syphilis?

posted about 7 years ago

Ijon‭

1 reputation 6 0 0 0