Didn't expect to see ME mentioned in Neel Mukherjee's novel

Am enjoying Neel Mukherjee's 2010 novel A Life Apart - a novel within a novel -  and was surprised to come across this observation from the main character Ritwik Ghosh, a student from Calcutta studying English Lit at Oxford in 80s/90s:

 'And then there is the steady rise of illnesses Ritwik's never heard of - glandular fever and ME, chronic fatigue syndrome and RSI. God, these are the very people who take a  dozen jabs before they go to India and carry a whole pharmacy with them...