Seroprevalence of Cytomegalovirus among Pregnant Women in Khartoum State

ABSTRACT Cytomegalovirus is the most important cause of congenital infection. Exposure to this virus for the first time during pregnancy may have a higher risk of miscarriage.

The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of Cytomegalovirus among pregnant women in Khartoum State.

A total of 91 participated women with and without history of miscarriage were enrolled in this study. Out of the enrolled women 39(42.8%) were pregnant women with history of abortion, while 52(57.1%) were pregnant women without history of abortion. Five ml of blood specimens were collected from each participated women and dispensed into sterile EDTA blood container to obtain the plasma. The later was obtained by centrifugation at 3000 g for 5 minutes. The sera were examined for the presence of CMV IgG antibodies using enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).

The results showed that out of 91 blood specimens investigated, 67(73.6%) were positive for CMV. The Pregnant women with history of miscarriage were highly infected with CMV than those without history of miscarriage (82.1% vs 67.3%) respectively. The seropositivity of CMV was more detected in those pregnant women within the second trimester (76.2%) of pregnancy. There was high prevalence rate (82.4%) of CMV infection among pregnant women within the age group (25–34). The study concluded that the seroprevalence of CMV infections among pregnant women in Khartoum State was high. Further studies with large numbers of participants and more advanced techniques are required to validate the results of this study.