Special Problems of Children with ME/CFS and the enteroviral link

Jane Colby ^1*

¹ Tymes Trust, United Kingdom

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: jane.colby{at}tymestrust.org.

Accepted 3 August 2006

Abstract

Since 1997, it has been known that ME constitutes the biggest cause of long term sickness absence from school, in both staff and pupils. The scale of the problem in children is enormous, and the pattern of illness in schools suggests a prominent role for virus infection, for example, the clustering of cases. The Dowsett/Colby study of 1997, researching long term sickness, reported on a school roll of 333,024 pupils and 27,327 staff, and found a prevalence of 70/100,000 in pupils and 500/100,000 in staff; 39% of cases were in clusters of 3 or more. The peak age was 14-16 years. The illness is known to be very severe despite an absence of both clinical signs and abnormal test results. In addition, the Tymes Trust has reported that many affected children and their families struggle for recognition of their needs and feel bullied by medical professionals. Children should have time to recover before returning to school and home education has a very important role here. Research is needed into the viruses that trigger childhood ME, for example, enteroviruses, and into the neurocognitive defects caused by ME. We should recognise the value of previous biological research that has been done into ME, and I recommend that ME be made notifiable.

Key Words: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Myalgic encephalomyelitis, children, enterovirus, schools

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