Evidence for Bacterial (Mycoplasma, Chlamydia) and Viral (HHV-6) Co-Infections in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Patients

Using the blood of 100 CFS patients and forensic polymerase chain reaction we have found that a majority of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) patients show evidence of multiple, systemic bacterial and viral infections (OR = 18.0, 95% CL 8.5-37.9, P < 0.001) that could play an important role in CFS morbidity. CFS patients had a high prevalence (51%) of one of four Mycoplasma species (OR = 13.8, 95% CL 5.8-32.9, P < 0.001) and often showed evidence of co-infections with different Mycoplasma species, Chlamydia pneumoniae (OR = 8.6, 95% CL 1.0-71.1, P < 0.01) and/or active Human Herpes Virus-6 (HHV-6) (OR = 4.5, 95% CL 2.0-10.2, P < 0.001). We found that 8% of the CFS patients showed evidence of C. pneumoniae and 31% of active HHV-6 infections. Since the presence of one or more chronic systemic infections may predispose patients to other infections, we examined the prevalence of C. pneumoniae and active HHV-6 infections in mycoplasma-positive and –negative patients. The incidence of C. pneumoniae or HHV-6 was similar in mycoplasma-positive and -negative patients, suggesting that such infections occur independently in CFS patients. Also, the incidence of C. pneumoniae in active HHV-6-positive and –negative patients was similar. Control subjects (N=100) had low rates of mycoplasmal (6%), active HHV-6 (9%) or chlamydial (1%) infections, and there were no co-infections in control subjects. Differences in bacterial and/or viral infections in CFS patients compared to control subjects were significant. The results indicate that a relatively large subset of CFS patients show evidence of bacterial and viral coinfections.