Plague Inc. Who Needs Science Achievement Guide & Walkthrough

The 'Who needs Science' achievement can only be unlocked while playing on the Nipah Virus scenario. The pop-ups that appear in order to unlock this achievement are somehow related to the events that happened in the 2011 movie, Contagion. I think that the Nipah Virus scenario itself is based on the Contagion movie.

This achievement is quite difficult to achieve. The pop-ups that need to appear seem to show up at random. By using this strategy, I was able to make both pop-ups appear in 3 out of 4 games. It's not 100% but it's definitely something. Updates to this guide will be made once we're able to gather more information about the achievement.

Credits to ErmacAuditore for helping out in experimenting on different strategies to unlock this achievement.

I'll repeat once again, this guide is not always successful. It has a success chance of 75% to unlock the "Who needs Science" achievement. Before we start there are a few things you should know about regarding this guide:

1. There's a chance you won't be able to successfully unlock the achievement on your first chance. Just keep trying.
2. Be patient. The pop-ups appear at random, it could show up right away or after a long period of time.
3. Don't give up until the cure completion reaches 100%
4. Devolve every symptom that mutates. In the beginning you'll have a limited supply of DNA, what I suggest is before evolving something, make sure that you add 3 DNA before doing so. For example, Drug Resistance costs 11 DNA, wait until you have 14 DNA before evolving. This 3 DNA serves as our safety net for mutated symptoms since we need to devolve them immediately.
5. Try not to get too frustrated. It's a game.

Now onto the guide:

Suggested Difficulty: Casual

Gene setup:

• ATP Boost
• Aquacyte
• Translesion+
• Creationist
• Extremophile

1.) From the beginning until I tell you to stop, remember to always devolve any mutated symptoms. Evolve the following in this order.

• Swine 1
• Headache
• Nuchal Rigidity
• Fever
• Drug Resistance 1
• Drug Resistance 2
• Cold Resistance 1
• Heat Resistance 1

2.) Keep devolving symptoms and be extremely patient while waiting for this pop-up to appear:

Lude Jaw claims [plague name] cure

• This pop-up could either appear right away(4~5 billion people infected) or after a long while(6 billion infected and cure progression reaching 90%).
• If your cure progression reaches 95%, immediately use all three Genetic Re-Shuffles

3.) After seeing the pop-up above, evolve the following:

• Encaphalitic Shift
• Photophobia
• Blurred Vision
• Hallucination
• Memory Loss
• Confusion
• Drowsiness
• At this point, you can stop devolving symptoms.
• Wait for the last pop-up to appear. Again, this could either take awhile or appear right away.

4.) Wait for this pop-up to appear:

Lude Jaw triggers infection in [random country]

• Congratulations! This pop-up signifies the successful unlocking of the Who needs Science achievement.

ErmacAuditore has also made some suggestions on extra abilities and symptoms that could help to increase chances of success. Try them out if you wish.

• Cold Resistance 2
• Coughing and Sneezing for infectivity
• Genetic Hardening 1 and 2 to slow down the cure progression

If you have any thoughts you'd like to share, post them at the comments. I hope this guide has helped you unlock the achievement.