First off, everybody is forgetting that we are dealing with a deasease. We need to set up a quarinten. We dont know how it will effect our race. Second, even if they die out, we wont know how to decode their systems to use their tech. Third, we may need them in the future. They may be holding bigger bad back.
We're dealing with an alien species. There's no way that a disease can spread between our races. Besides, the different environements needed for them and us to survive prevent direct contact.
@Urist McDwarfFortress: I propose we start research on the moonie biology anyway. It'd gain us quite a lot, and we don't need to find a cure. Just promise we'd try.
Bird flu was named that because it was a disease that mainly infected avians. Avians are not mammals. In fact, the way most "infections" work (as far as my medical knowledge goes) is that there is a foreign body or element within yours, that is noted as such, by your body. Your body then tries to force the foreign invader out of the body by braking it down through antibodies and heat. Please correct me where I am wrong.
We also do not currently know the nature of their illnesses, so it could very well be something that would have been like a common cold to us, becoming a horrid virus through them, and can be cross adaptable. it could also be the virus we fought off far earlier, and they had sent a spy into our camp, which got infected, brought it back to their race, and they are suffering the consequences.
Mamals and avians still use the same DNA, and have a common ancestor. Besides, 99.9 % of the microbiology only targets a few species. The reason that bird flu became such a threat, is because they are livestock. Cultivated in close proximity of humans, and subject to a lot of antibiotics which allows their immuntity to them to raise. Besides, bird flu is a strain of a virus that also targets humans. Moonies and humans don't, hence there are no similarities for the disease to latch on to. Unless there's a divine creator, or panspermia, both are incredibly unlikely.
You're wrong. That's the definition of an allergic reaction. Which could indeed happen, but hell, the same thing happens should you get a bit of metal in your hand, or anything else that isn't supposed to be there. An allergic reaction can be the cause of an infection but, an allergic reaction can't become a plage. A disease/plague is when something starts attacking and hacking yourself, and your immune system (fails to )react(s) adequately to this. Allergic reactions can't repeat themselves.
It can't be cross infectious, because the aliens are remarkably similair to us There's no way that the disease could survive in both their and our bodies. So ,while an accidental transmission can cause some problems for some time, the disease will quickly die off. Reason for this is:
-Viral infection. Relies on hijacking cells, implementing RNA or Dna and copying itself. Extraterrestials have no reason to have these. Besides, their cel structures are most likely radicaly different.
-Bacterial or other infection: Relies on disguising itself to prevent triggering the antibodies or their Moonie equivalent. Or being immune to them. Then eats cells, then reproduces. There are 3 problems here:
-The bacteria and immune system have never seen each other. Hence the bacteria can't be immune, or disguised. At worst this triggers an alergic reaction which kills the Moonie, but it can't spread since the bacteria die too.
-Eating cells: Moonie cells have no reason to be composed in the same ways as our cells.
-Reproduction: This relies heavily on body temperature. Considering moonies live on the moons, which are nearly always freezing, and even the oceans below are probably artic, the body temperature for Moonies will not be within the tolerable limits for allmost all bacteria (And those that can survive there can't survive in our body.) This is why you get fevers, for example. The body raises it's temperature in an attempt to kill the intruder.
Mainly,
this trope is the one you're looking for.
Besides, a sort off Quarantine is already in effect, due to the fact that Moonies and Humans can't survive in the same athmosphere/ circumstances.