Nation IN BRIEF : NORTH CAROLINA : New Test Diagnoses Chronic Fatigue Flu

A new blood test will aid in diagnosing chronic fatigue syndrome, an influenza-like illness nicknamed “yuppie flu.” Dr. Jay Levy, announcing the test’s development at a medical conference on the illness in Charlotte, N. C., predicted that it will become the “disease of the ‘90s.” He said: “It takes about decade before the public wakes up and realizes that this is not going to go away.” The symptoms are exhaustion, aching joints and muscles and other problems that persist longer than six months, often for years. Because it has been widely reported among educated women in their 30s and 40s, it is dubbed “yuppie flu.” Levy, an AIDS researcher at UC San Francisco, led the development of the blood test. He said that no single viral cause could be identified, but some research tied the syndrome to a retrovirus, one of the family of viruses that causes AIDS.