Akureyri disease (also called Iceland disease or epidemic neuromyasthenia) is the name used for an outbreak of fatigue symptoms in

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

. The outbreak of a disease simulating

poliomyelitis Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 70% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe sym ...

took place in the town of

Akureyri Akureyri (, locally ) is a town in northern Iceland. It is Iceland's fifth-largest municipality, after Reykjavík, Hafnarfjörður, Reykjanesbær and Kópavogur, and the largest town outside Iceland's more populated southwest corner. Nicknamed ...

in northern Iceland in the winter of 1948–1949. The center of the

epidemic An epidemic (from Ancient Greek, Greek ἐπί ''epi'' "upon or above" and δῆμος ''demos'' "people") is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of patients among a given population within an area in a short period of time. Epidemics ...

was in the main secondary boarding school. The predominant symptoms were tiredness and exhaustion. Since the outbreak of the disease, those affected were often thought to have a

psychiatric disorder A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitt ...

such as

hysteria Hysteria is a term used colloquially to mean ungovernable emotional excess and can refer to a temporary state of mind or emotion. In the nineteenth century, hysteria was considered a diagnosable physical illness in women. It is assumed that ...

. 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. 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.The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson. Pages 318-320. Published by Doubleday in 2019. (hardcover).

References

{{chronic fatigue syndrome Chronic fatigue syndrome 1948 in Iceland 1949 in Iceland

See also

References