Virus Genome Sequences in the Blood of Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Patients

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) is a baffling disease. The disease has a wide spectrum of severity, to date has no established molecular marker, no known causation, and no cure. Many patients report in retrospect that they suffered a virus infection prior to suffering their first symptoms of ME/CFS. Therefore, we report a search for virus genome sequences in the cell-free blood of ME/CFS patients and healthy controls. We used a panel of molecular probes to assess the presence or absence of 185 diverse human viruses in each sample. We identified a total of seventeen viruses, with more in the healthy controls than in the ME/CFS patients.