By the age of 40, there is about a 95% chance that a person has the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV). In most people, this virus does not appear to cause any complications. For some, especially those who contract it as a teenager or young adult, EBV causes mononucleosis. Normally, the virus is dormant, but if your immune system is weakened, either from disease or certain medications , it can become reactivated. EBV has been found to cause other diseases such as some cancers, multiple sclerosis, lupus, and others. In a small subset of patients, EBV can manifest itself with prolonged symptoms similar to those of chronic fatigue syndrome. A diagnosis of chronic Epstein-Barr virus (CEBV) is usually made once symptoms persist for six months or more.
Chronic Epstein-Barr virus produces SYMPTOMS such as-
immobilizing fatigue, swollen, painful lymph glands, constant, sometimes unspecific pain possible in almost any part of the body, heart palpitations and occasionally irregular heart patterns, persistent nausea, lightheadedness with the possibility of fainting, inability to think clearly or concentrate( foggy head), pelvic pain, headaches and migraines, depression, fever and chills, hypersomnia and insomnia, sensitivity to light, swollen spleen and/or liver, tremors, and many others.
Due to the wide range of symptoms, diagnosing EBV and eventually CEBV is not easy, simply due to the fact that most physicians do not readily think of EBV as the cause and tend to skip the blood work necessary for its detection. Additionally, there is the compounding problem of the fact that some physicians do not believe that EBV is the root of the problem for the symptoms.
1Department of Virology, Nagoya University Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya, Japan
2Medical Virology Section, Laboratory of Infectious Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, United States
Chronic active Epstein–Barr virus (CAEBV) disease is a rare disorder in which persons are unable to control infection with the virus. The disease is progressive with markedly elevated levels of EBV DNA in the blood and infiltration of organs by EBV-positive lymphocytes. Patients often present with fever, lymphadenopathy, splenomegaly, EBV hepatitis, or pancytopenia. Over time, these patients develop progressive immunodeficiency and if not treated, succumb to opportunistic infections, hemophagocytosis, multiorgan failure, or EBV-positive lymphomas. Patients with CAEBV in the United States most often present with disease involving B or T cells, while in Asia, the disease usually involves T or NK cells. The only proven effective treatment for the disease is hematopoietic stem cell transplantation. Current studies to find a cause of this disease focus on immune defects and genetic abnormalities associated with the disease. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2017.01867/full