Background
The natural history of congenital CMV infection is scarcely known in populations with high maternal CMV seroprevalence. This study evaluated birth prevalence, clinical findings at birth, and hearing outcome in infected children from such a population.
Methods
Infants consecutively born were screened for the presence of CMV in urine and/or saliva within the first two weeks. Neonatal clinical findings were recorded and infected children were tested to document hearing function during follow-up. A subset of mothers of infected infants was prenatally tested for the presence of anti-CMV IgG antibodies.
Results
Congenital CMV infection was confirmed in 87/8047 infants (1.08%; 95%CI: 0.86–1.33). Seven (8.1%; 95%CI: 3.3–15.9) infants had at least one clinical finding suggestive of CMV infection and 4 (4.6%; CI95%: 1.3–11.3) had ≥ 3 findings of systemic disease. Sensorineural hearing loss was found in 5/58 (8.6%; CI95%: 2.9–19.0) children tested at a median age of 21 months. Bilateral profound hearing loss was observed in two children and hearing threshold was >60 dBHL in all five children with hearing loss, including two children born to mothers with probable non primary CMV infection.
Conclusions
The results of this first large newborn screening study in a population with high CMV seroimmunity provide additional evidence that congenital CMV disease occurs in populations with high seroprevalence rates with a similar incidence of CMV-related hearing loss to that reported in offspring of women from populations in the developed countries with lower rates of seroimmunity to CMV.
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