CYTOMEGALOVIRUS

What is it?

Cytomegalovirus, or CMV, is a common virus which can infect anyone.

Who gets it?

By the age of. 40 years, 60 - 70% of the population in the UK will have been infected with CMV.

What are the symptoms?

95% of those infected will have had no symptoms, so they do not know that they have had CMV. The remainder may experience:
Flu-like symptoms ill or an illness resembling glandular fever or hepatitis with Jaundice. CMV may produce a more serious infection in anyone with a lowered immune system:

• premature babies
• those being treated for cancer
• leukaemia sufferers
• transplant patients
• AIDS sufferers

If a woman gets a primary CMV infection while she is pregnant the baby may be born unaffected or affected by one or more of the following:

• hearing loss
• sight problems
• epilepsy
• liver and/or spleen enlargement
• heart defects
• cerebral palsy
• mental retardation
• brain calcification

These factors can lead to learning and behavioural problems and low IQ, or more severe mental and physical handicaps.

How is CMV spread

CMV is excreted in the saliva, urine faeces, semen and cervical secretions of infected people. Any of these secretions can transmit CMV. So you can catch CMV by:

• kissing on the mouth
• intimate bodily contact
• sexual intercourse
• blood transfusions
• organ transplants

A child may contract CMV from an infected mother before birth, during birth and through breast feeding.

What is the treatment?

As yet there are no drugs available to treat a CMV infection

Some research has been done to find a vaccine but further work is prevented by lack of funds

Remember the vast majority of CMV infections are harmless, but if you are pregnant and have not had CMV, you are at risk.