Researchers from UNSW are able to predict who is going to develop chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), after acute infections such as glandular fever.

“The sicker you are at the beginning of the infection, the more likely it is to result in a prolonged illness,” said UNSW Professor Andrew Lloyd, of the Centre for Infection and Inflammation Research, who leads the research team.

“We have also shown that the fatigue has been triggered in ten percent of people, from the moment the acute infection starts,” he said. “It’s just that some of the other symptoms, such as fevers, sore throat, and swollen glands go away.”

Since 1999, a team led by Professor Lloyd has been tracking the long-term health of individuals infected with Ross River virus (RRV), Q fever infection and Epstein-Barr virus, which causes glandular fever. The study is centred around the NSW city of Dubbo.

“The further you go down the track in looking at people after the acute stage of these quite different infections, the more they merge into a uniform syndrome,” said Professor Lloyd.

“These three different bugs trigger this fatigue from moment one, of day one, of the acute infection,” he said. “We are now looking at genetic factors to identify who might be most at risk.”

CFS affects an estimated 100,000 Australians and is diagnosed when there is a disabling fatigue state that persists for six months or more, without any alternative medical or psychiatric explanation for the illness.

Of the first 253 participants in the Dubbo Study, 28 (11 percent) met the diagnostic criteria for CFS.

“Our research also overturns a lot of misconceptions about CFS,” said Professor Lloyd.

“We looked at age, sex, education, personality style, and psychiatric health and it turns out that none of those things predict the outcome,” said Professor Lloyd of the team’s work, which has been published in the prestigious British Medical Journal. “This finding argues against the popular belief that CFS is a psychological disorder."

Professor Lloyd said the positive news is that most people who suffer post-infective fatigue syndrome do get better without medical intervention. While ten percent of people have the condition at six months, only five percent have it at 12 months.

“About 99 percent of people are better within a couple of years,” said Professor Lloyd. “While that’s still not good, there’s a notion in the community that people with CFS never get better. This work goes to disprove yet another myth about the condition.”

The research team is comprised of scientists from UNSW and the University of Sydney. The study been funded by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia and the Centers for Disease Control, USA.