I decided to go for the instant infection and paid my 25K. I can't see any change to my avatar base and have no idea what disease I've got. Going back to the Voluntary Infection Program page just tells me I'm not infected enough to bite anyone. Where can I find out what I'm infected with?

there's a sticky thread in Survival forum which shows what people got and how they're progressing. The 25K option just means you don't have to waitfor/seekout a zombie player who is VIP-registered to Bite you.

Here's your avatar base preview: link According to this thread you have the carchari strain. c:

Thanks. I've just saved a naked avatar and can now see I'm infected with something.

I've looked through all the 2015 topics in the Survival thread and can't see anything for getting bitten by people infected with the carchari strain.

Carchari is a 2015 strain. This means there isn't any user who's sufficiently ill to Bite anyone with it yet. I suppose since you have it, if you wanted you could set up your shingle ahead of time with promises to Bite everyone on your thread?

I'm pretty sure you only need to be bitten for the older strains - the new ones should work like the older ones used to and progress on their own.

Thanks again both of you. I'll just have to wait and see what, if anything, happens.