If the first VITAS outbreak occurred in 2010 and it WAS being used to get rid of certain family lines, to perhaps prevent certain phenotypes from awakening, then we would have to look at groups that were aware of magic and the cycles of mana prior to the awakening, which leaves us a fairly short list. One possibility would be the Catholic Church. Perhaps a shadow group in the church or maybe a cult offshoot of Christianity may have been behind it. I do not suspect any cults would have had the resources capable of developing the virus, though.
I also don't think the pharmaceutical companies were intentionally only looking for a treatment instead of a cure. For that to be a viable option, they would need a treatment that was required for the rest of the patient's life, not just until the body was able to fight off the virus. There is just not enough profit to be had in a short term treatment to bother with.
In my opinion VITAS was either a random mutation of an already existing virus or specifically designed by a military or shadow group for the purposes of reducing the population of a given area.It is possible that a government or shadow agency could have released it in Asia in an attempt to destabilize the region even further and the virus was more virulent than they had anticipated.
-ARCimedes
