Pogosta disease is a

viral disease A viral disease (or viral infection) occurs when an organism's body is invaded by pathogenic viruses, and infectious virus particles (virions) attach to and enter susceptible cells. Structural Characteristics Basic structural characteristics, s ...

. The symptoms of the disease usually include

rash A rash is a change of the human skin which affects its color, appearance, or texture. A rash may be localized in one part of the body, or affect all the skin. Rashes may cause the skin to change color, itch, become warm, bumpy, chapped, dry, cr ...

, as well as mild

fever Fever, also referred to as pyrexia, is defined as having a body temperature, temperature above the human body temperature, normal range due to an increase in the body's temperature Human body temperature#Fever, set point. There is not a single ...

and other

flu Influenza, commonly known as "the flu", is an infectious disease caused by influenza viruses. Symptoms range from mild to severe and often include fever, runny nose, sore throat, muscle pain, headache, coughing, and fatigue. These symptom ...

-like symptoms; in most cases the symptoms last less than 5 days. However, in some cases, the patients develop a painful

arthritis Arthritis is a term often used to mean any disorder that affects joints. Symptoms generally include joint pain and stiffness. Other symptoms may include redness, warmth, swelling, and decreased range of motion of the affected joints. In som ...

. There are no known chemical agents available to treat the disease.

Cause

It has long been suspected that the disease is caused by a Sindbis-like virus, a positive-stranded

RNA virus An RNA virus is a virusother than a retrovirusthat has ribonucleic acid (RNA) as its genetic material. The nucleic acid is usually single-stranded RNA ( ssRNA) but it may be double-stranded (dsRNA). Notable human diseases caused by RNA viruses ...

belonging to the

Alphavirus ''Alphavirus'' is a genus of RNA viruses, the sole genus in the ''Togaviridae'' family. Alphaviruses belong to group IV of the Baltimore classification of viruses, with a positive-sense, single-stranded RNA genome. There are 32 alphaviruses ...

genus and family

Togaviridae This category is for articles about virus families (or redirects to such articles). There should be no subcategories. families Family (from la, familia) is a group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or affinity ( ...

. In 2002 a strain of Sindbis was isolated from patients during an outbreak of the Pogosta disease in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, confirming the hypothesis.

Epidemiology

This disease is mainly found in the Eastern parts of

; the disease was first detected in 1974 in the old parish village of

Ilomantsi Ilomantsi ( krl, Il'manči or Ilomančči, sv, Ilomants) is municipality and a village of Finland. It is located in the North Karelia region. The municipality has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The population densi ...

, sometimes called ''Pogosta''.Virus unique to Finland sees biggest outbreak in decades
– ''

Yle News Yleisradio Oy (Finnish, literally "General Radio Ltd." or "General Broadcast Ltd."; abbr. Yle ; sv, Rundradion Ab, italics=no), translated to English as the Finnish Broadcasting Company, is Finland's national public broadcasting company, founde ...

'' A typical Pogosta disease patient is a middle-aged person who has been infected through a

mosquito Mosquitoes (or mosquitos) are members of a group of almost 3,600 species of small flies within the family Culicidae (from the Latin ''culex'' meaning " gnat"). The word "mosquito" (formed by ''mosca'' and diminutive ''-ito'') is Spanish for "li ...

bite while picking berries in the autumn. The prevalence of the disease is about 100 diagnosed cases every year, with larger outbreaks occurring in 7-year intervals.

Etymology

It is also known as Karelian fever and Ockelbo disease. The names are derived from the words

Pogosta ''Pogost'' (russian: погост, from Old East Slavic: погостъ) is a historical term with several meanings in the Russian language. It has also been borrowed into Latgalian (''pogosts''), Finnish (''pogosta'') and Latvian (''pagasts' ...

Karelia Karelia ( Karelian and fi, Karjala, ; rus, Каре́лия, links=y, r=Karélija, p=kɐˈrʲelʲɪjə, historically ''Korjela''; sv, Karelen), the land of the Karelian people, is an area in Northern Europe of historical significance for ...

and

Ockelbo Ockelbo is a locality and the seat of Ockelbo Municipality, Gävleborg County, Sweden with 2,724 inhabitants in 2010. The name Ockelbo, spelled ''De oklabo'' in 1314, contains an old marine name ''*Ukle'', referring to modern-day Lake Bysjön. ...

References

External links

{{Medical resources , DiseasesDB = , ICD10 = {{ICD10, A92.8 , ICD9 = , ICDO = , OMIM = , MedlinePlus = , MeSH = , GeneReviewsNBK = , GeneReviewsName = Viral diseases Insect-borne diseases