 Item Number- SCP-5445 Object Class- Keter Site Responsible- EGB-AEQ-Site 98 Director- Professor Khaled Haddad Research Head- Researcher Ola Bisi's Hajjar Assigned Task Force- Mobile Task Force Lambda-14 Level 2- Classified Threat Level- Yellow Special Containment Procedures- Restaurants in the Middle East-North Africa region are to be regularly checked for the presence of SCP-5445, with particular attention paid to restaurants within 10 km of known infected. Infected restaurants are to be closed under the pretense of health code violation. At the behest of Egyptian and Algerian governments, restaurants may be reopened after the incorporation of powerful antibiotic recipes into the menus, followed by careful observation. Following closure, restaurant accounts are to be examined for SCP-5445-1 sales. Sales found to have ordered SCP-5445-1 are to be located and detained by Mobile Task Force Lambda-14, codename Manhunters, and transferred to the on-site restaurant of Site-98. Subjects are to be coerced into ordering the two-course antibiotic pre-feaks by any means necessary, after which they are to be administered class amnestics and released. A single culture of SCP-5445 is kept for study in the Café Skollex, a Foundation front restaurant located in a secure containment cell of Antarctic Research Area 1483. Description SCP-5445 is a bacterial infection transmissible between humans and restaurants. Within humans, SCP-5445 is entirely asymptomatic. Restaurants infected by SCP-5445 experience an incubation period of approximately two weeks, after which initial symptoms manifest. Early stage infected are marked by a sudden increase in sanitation and subjective food quality, as well as decreases in menu prices and wait times. As such, infected restaurants typically experience an increase in business traffic. Following a period of one to three weeks, SCP-5445-1 will be incorporated into the menu without warning. SCP-5445-1 is the primary vector of SCP-5445, growing in tight clusters within designated food storage areas. SCP-5445-1 appears as an entree, consisting of a human skull soaked in blood. Different menus largely describe SCP-5445-1 as a, quote, fair trade delicacy, consumption of which offers a variety of somatic and psychological benefits. Restaurant staff universally consider SCP-5445-1 to be a natural addition to the menu, albeit, quote, adventurous. Restaurant to human transmission of SCP-5445 occurs through the consumption of SCP-5445-1, while human to restaurant transmission occurs through monetary exchange. While the antibiotic treatment has been found to be 99% effective in eliminating SCP-5445, treatment must occur within the context of restaurant food. As of July 31, 1998, restaurants and human are known to have been infected with SCP-5445. The process by which a bacterial agent can infect social constructs such as restaurants is poorly understood. Research is ongoing under the supervision of Dr. Guy Echo. SCP-5445-1 possesses no known compulsive property.