Polio Vaccination and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Background: Previous research has suggested that enteroviruses may be implicated in the development and persistence of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS). One method of investigating this topic has been to use a polio vaccination challenge, and a previous study showed that CFS patients had more shedding than healthy controls. There was no effect of the vaccination on the clinical condition or wellbeing of the CFS patients.

Methods: In the previous study, the control group were more likely to have had a recent booster vaccination. This was controlled in the present study, where 18 CFS patients were randomly assigned to vaccination or placebo conditions. Nine healthy volunteers were also given the polio vaccination.

Results: The results confirmed that vaccination had no negative effects on the CFS group. Although there was more virus shedding in the CFS polio group than in the control polio group, this difference was not significant.

Conclusion: This study confirms that polio vaccination is not contraindicated in CFS patients but could not confirm that they are more susceptible to enterovirus infection.