What is Mediterranean Fever?

There are 2 types of Mediterranean fevers: “Familial Mediterranean fever” and just “Mediterranean fever”.
1. Familial Mediterranean fever is an inflammatory autoimmune disease, genetically conditioned, that affects the peritoneum, pleura, joints and skin. It manifests with a fever, abdominal pain, chest pain, joint pain and skin lesions. Symptoms come and go like attacks. Between the attacks there are no symptoms.
2. “Mediterranean fever” is also called “Brucellosis”. It is a severe, chronic infective disease caused by bacteria called Brucella and it is transmitted from animals to people (sheep, cows, horses, pigs, dogs…). People can be directly infected by contact with an animal’s placenta, amnion liquid or urine. This happens to people who work with animals (cowboys, veterinary doctors, butchers…). The disease can be also transmitted indirectly by consuming uncultivated milk, cheese, meat and other eating products from those same animals.
The symptoms of Mediterranean fever, or Brucellosis, begin after 2 weeks of an incubation period. The disease starts with a recurrent high temperature followed by night sweating. Typically, a person will also experience muscle and joint pains in the neck and sacrum. The liver, spleen and many lymph nodes can become swollen. If not treated, the acute disease turns into a sub-chronic condition, causing inflammation of the joints (especially of the vertebral and sacro-iliac joints), tendons, heart’s muscle and covering of the brain. The chronic form of Mediterranean fever is complicated with inflammation of the testicles, tubes, nerves and joint immobility.
Diagnosis of Mediterranean fever is confirmed by serologically detecting antibodies in the blood.
The therapy for Mediterranean fever includes antibiotics (rifampicin, tetracyclines and co-trimoxasol) for the acute form and antibiotics, corticosteroids and vaccine-therapy for the chronic form.
Brucellosis is a long lasting disease (chronic) if not treated on time. The acute form of the disease has a better prognosis if treated with antibiotics. A relapse of the disease is possible in 15-20% of all cases.