I got mononucleosis when I was 15 or so and was reading up on it recently because why not. The Wikipedia article says the Epstein-Barr virus *usually* causes it but that other viruses can do as well. How would two different viruses cause one disease? Shouldn’t they be two different diseases even if they have similar symptoms?
In: 4
Historically, when people refer to diseases, often what they’re referring to isn’t a single cause, but rather a bundle of symptoms that all come together. Consider for example things like “the flu”, “the common cold”, “pneumonia”, or “food poisoning”.
This is especially the case because we didn’t always know what caused diseases. Figuring out exactly what infectious agent is causing an illness requires labwork, and can sometimes require very expensive equipment – for example, you probably can’t tell which virus someone has without PCR or electron microscopes.
Mono it turns out is a disease mostly of the throat caused by a specific virus…but also, sometimes other viruses can cause almost identical symptoms. In almost all cases, the treatment is the same (that is, rest, fluids, monitoring, NSAIDs for the fever and pain). So there’s not really any point in distinguishing between Epstein-Barr mono and CMV mono for the vast majority of cases. If it got bad enough that you had to be hospitalized and they were considering using antivirals, they might check to see what strain you had, but short of that it doesn’t really matter.
Latest Answers