Akureyri disease

Akureyri disease (also called Iceland disease or epidemic neuromyasthenia) is used for an outbreak of fatigue symptoms in Iceland.[1] The outbreak of a disease simulating poliomyelitis took place in the town of Akureyri in northern Iceland in the winter of 1948–1949. The center of the epidemic was in the main secondary boarding school. The predominant symptoms were tiredness and exhaustion. Since the outbreak of the disease, the sufferers were often thought to suffer from a psychiatric disorder such as hysteria.[2]

The disease was first diagnosed as poliomyelitis and the first case was reported on September 25, 1948, in Akureyri. During the third and fourth weeks of November, this epidemic evidently was different from epidemics of poliomyelitis. The epidemic lasted for more than 3 months and the total number of reported cases was 488.[3]

This disease, also known as epidemic neuromyasthenia, has appeared in later decades in Louisville, Kentucky; Williamstown and Pittsfield, Massachusetts; Seward, Alaska; Dalston, England; and in the 1970s at Lackland Air Force Base, Texas.[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Blattner R (1956). "Benign myalgic encephalomyelitis (Akureyri disease, Iceland disease)". J. Pediatr. 49 (4): 504–6. doi:10.1016/S0022-3476(56)80241-2. PMID 13358047.
  2. ↑ Líndal E, Bergmann S, Thorlacius S, Stefánsson JG (1997). "Anxiety disorders: a result of long-term chronic fatigue - the psychiatric characteristics of the sufferers of Iceland disease". Acta Neurol Scand. 96 (4): 158–162. doi:10.1111/j.1600-0404.1997.tb00259.x.
  3. ↑ A disease epidemic in Iceland Simulating PolioMyelitis (Am. J. Epidemiol. (1950) 52 (2): 222-238)
  4. ↑ The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson. Pages 318-320. Published by Doubleday in 2019. ISBN 9780385539302 (hardcover).
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