In ME/CFS patients, it is common to have antibody evidence for more than one active viral infection. So it would not be surprising if long COVID patients also have other active viral infections, in addition to coronavirus, like active EBV.
I expect if researchers employed the
usual criteria used by ME/CFS specialists for serologically detecting chronic active infection in ME/CFS patients, they might find long COVID patients have an array of active viral infections, in addition to coronavirus.
In my case for example, my ME/CFS began after a coxsackievirus B4 infection, and I have high antibody levels to this virus, suggesting chronic active CVB4 infection.
However, I also have high antibodies to cytomegalovirus, and this virus might also be contributing to my ME/CFS.
It's likely my cytomegalovirus was inactive and dormant before I caught CVB4 and developed ME/CFS, but became active after catching CVB4.
Same may apply to long COVID patients: they may have had dormant viruses like EBV, HHV-6, cytomegalovirus, coxsackievirus B and echovirus before they caught coronavirus and developed long COVID, and maybe some of these dormant viruses reactivated once they were hit by long COVID.
The only problem is that long COVID researchers are unlikely to know that in order to detect chronic coxsackievirus B and echovirus infections in ME/CFS, Dr Chia found that only antibody tests using the neutralization method are sensitive enough. So if these researchers use the wrong enterovirus tests, they may erroneously conclude that coxsackievirus B and echovirus are not involved in long COVID.
