Patient reported long-term outcomes of Puumala virus infection in northern Sweden

Research project Puumala virus infection or Nephropathia epidemica, also called vole fever after the animal that spread the disease, is a common disease in northern Sweden. Västerbotten County has the highest incidence of the disease in Sweden.

Vole fever is a mild form of haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome and the severity of the acute disease ranges from mild to life-threatening disease, though the mortality is low. The disease is self-limiting and there is no causative treatment. Several other infectious diseases such as Epstein Barr Virus, Dengue, Chikungunya and Giardia-infections are known to cause long-term post-infectious fatigue. We wanted to investigate if there is a post-infectious fatigue syndrome or other long-term symptoms associated with vole fever.

Head of project

Birgitta Evengård Professor emerita, professor

+46 90 785 23 00

Project overview

Project period:

2010-09-01 – 2013-12-31

Funding

Finansår , 2010

huvudman: Birgitta Evengård, finansiar: Västerbottens läns landsting, y2010: 1180,

huvudman: Birgitta Evengård, finansiar: Kempefonden, y2010: 20,

Participating departments and units at Umeå University

Department of Clinical Microbiology

Research area

Public health and health care science

Project description

Puumala virus infection or Nephropathia epidemica, also called vole fever after the animal that spread the disease, is a common disease in northern Sweden. Västerbotten County has the highest incidence of the disease in Sweden; in the last major epidemic in 2007 the incidence was 313 per 100.000 persons. Vole fever is a mild form of haemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome and the severity of the acute disease ranges from mild to life-threatening disease, though the mortality is low. The disease is self-limiting and there is no causative treatment. Several other infectious diseases such as Epstein Barr Virus, Dengue, Chikungunya and Giardia-infections are known to cause long-term post-infectious fatigue. We wanted to investigate if there is a post-infectious fatigue syndrome or other long-term symptoms associated with vole fever.

We invited all patients diagnosed with vole fever in the counties of Västerbotten and Norrbotten between January 2007 and September 2010, a total of 1719 persons aged 18 to 93 years. We also invited a comparison group from the general population, matched by age, sex and place of residence. All participants received a questionnaire with a total of 147 questions about demographical data, occupation, exercise, smoking habits, vole fever and chronic diseases, etcetera. We used internationally validated questionnaires to assess general health _SF36v2, fatigue - FSS, sleep quality – PSQI, and pain – BPI.
66% (1132) of the patients and 53% (915) from the comparison group participated, giving an overall response rate of 60%, 2047 out of 3438 invited. Data is being analyzed.