Shukla, Jayshree L, Husain, Aliabbas A, Lyngdoh, Samantha A et al. · Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2022 · DOI
This study looked at how many people in Northeast India have been exposed to brucellosis, a bacterial infection spread from animals to humans. Researchers tested 1,046 people with fever-like symptoms and found that 11% had antibodies showing past or current brucellosis infection. They noticed that women were more affected than men, and that eating meat was a risk factor. Importantly, three symptoms—fever of unknown cause, muscle pain, and chronic fatigue—were commonly seen in people with brucellosis.
ME/CFS patients often present with pyrexia of unknown origin, myalgia, and chronic fatigue—the same triad identified here as clinically associated with brucellosis. This study highlights how infectious diseases with post-infection sequelae can mimic ME/CFS and may be underdiagnosed in regions with high brucella endemicity, suggesting that improved screening for brucellosis could help clarify disease etiology in some patients with fatigue disorders.
This study does not prove that brucellosis causes ME/CFS, nor does it establish that all ME/CFS cases in the region are brucella-related. The cross-sectional design cannot determine whether brucellosis infection preceded or followed symptom onset, and seropositivity alone (IgM antibodies) does not confirm active disease or chronic sequelae. The study identifies correlation between brucella exposure and symptom clusters, not causation.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
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