How to cure the zombie infection on ZA-Z with the Knox Antidote
The Knox Antidote is the only item on ZA-Z that cures the zombie infection. Drink the whole can and the Knox virus is gone: the fever, the nausea and the countdown to turning all stop at once. The bite itself stays, and the cure costs you 24 in-game hours (3 real hours) of full-body agony. It is very rare loot that only ever turns up in fridges: about 1 fridge in 100 in hospitals, clinics, pharmacies and labs, 1 in 2,000 anywhere else, and never more than one new can on the whole map every 14 in-game days.
#What does the Knox Antidote look like?
An opened can of fruit beverage, tinted bright green and named Knox Antidote. It weighs 0.8 and you drink it from the Drink option on the right-click menu, like any canned juice. It quenches your thirst like one too.
Finishing it leaves a green empty tin in your inventory. Nothing else in the game makes one, so that green tin is your proof the dose went down.
#How do I cure the zombie infection?
- Drink the whole can. The cure fires on the sip that empties it, so "Drink all" is the safe choice. A partial sip does nothing yet, but nothing is wasted: the rest still cures you when you finish it.
- Check for the green empty tin. That is how you know it worked.
- Deal with the wound. The virus is gone, the bite is not (see below).
Carrying a can, dropping it, putting it in a bag or handing it to a friend never sets it off. Only drinking it does.
#What does the Knox Antidote cure, and what doesn't it?
| Condition | After a dose |
|---|---|
| Zombie infection (the Knox virus) | Gone. The countdown stops for good. |
| Zombie fever, and the queasy, nauseous and sick moodles it causes | Gone |
| The bite, scratch or laceration itself | Stays. Bandage, disinfect and stitch it like any wound. |
| Bleeding and wound infection | Stay |
| Health you already lost | Stays lost and heals at the normal rate |
| The next bite | No protection. A new bite is a new infection. |
A bite wound closes on the normal clock: 50 to 80 in-game hours, or 80 to 150 for a slow healer. The scar is the price of the cure.
#How bad is the pain after the Knox Antidote?
A dose starts 24 in-game hours (3 real hours) of extra pain on every body part. The server tops it up every in-game minute and pushes the total far past the top of the pain scale, so the pain moodle sits at its worst and painkillers barely dent it. Plan to spend those hours somewhere safe.
Logging out does not end it early, and neither does a server restart: the pain clock is saved with the world. It ends when the 24 hours are up, or when you die.
Drinking one when you are not infected still costs you the full 24 hours of pain. It gives no immunity.
#Does the Knox Antidote go bad?
Yes, fast. Keep it cold.
| Where you keep it | Fresh for | Rotten after |
|---|---|---|
| Anywhere without power (bag, pocket, shelf, dead fridge) | 1 in-game day (3 real hours) | 2 in-game days (6 real hours) |
| Powered fridge (grid or generator) | 5 in-game days (15 real hours) | 10 in-game days (30 real hours) |
| Powered freezer | Does not age | Never |
A stale can still cures you. Only a rotten one fails, and all a rotten one does is make you sick. The clock starts the moment the can spawns, so a can sitting in a fridge nobody has found yet is already ageing.
#Where does the Knox Antidote spawn?
Only in the fridge compartment of fridges that came with the map. The odds, per fridge:
| Fridge in | Chance |
|---|---|
| A medical room: hospitals, medical clinics, pharmacies, labs and drug labs, dentists, morgues | 1% (1 in 100) |
| Any other room | 0.05% (1 in 2,000) |
The rules around those odds:
- It rolls before anyone opens the fridge. The server checks the fridges within about 80 tiles of each player, and each fridge rolls the first time it is checked. It is the same pass that stocks fridges with South African food, so the antidote rides along with the biltong.
- Once per fridge, mostly. A fridge only rolls again after the 30-day loot respawn interval, and only if it then holds 8 items or fewer.
- One at a time. Once a can spawns anywhere on the map, no other can spawn for 14 in-game days (42 real hours). That caps the whole server at four new cans a real week, and in practice there are far fewer.
- Never in a safehouse, and never in a fridge too full to take it.
So your best odds are an unexplored hospital, clinic or pharmacy, opened soon after you arrive.
#Knox Antidote or the Immune System?
Some survivors beat the virus without a cure. ZA-Z's hidden Immune System gives every infection a secret 15 to 50% chance to fight the virus off, though even a win takes careful nursing and a bit of luck. The antidote is the sure thing: it works at any stage, even after your immune system has lost. Drink it in the middle of a fight with the virus and the fight ends on the spot (no weakness afterwards, just the 24 hours of pain). Antibiotics do nothing against the Knox virus.