CMV is a frequent virus in precisely the same household as herpesvirus, and it may infect anybody.
CMV spreads by direct contact of body fluids, including blood, saliva, urine, semen, and vaginal fluids, congenital disease, and breast milk. Therefore, breastfeeding, blood transfusions, organ transplant, maternal illness, and sexual contact are potential transmission ways. According to meddo specialists, Most healthy individuals don't experience any symptoms when infected with CMV, which doesn't pose a significant health issue. The vast majority of adults have antibodies consistent with the previous infection. Individuals at risk for acute CMV disease typically have a lack of cell-mediated immunity.
Most healthy children and adults who have symptoms will recuperate from CMV disease without complications and don't need antiviral therapy.
But, in people who have a weakened immune system, CMV can lead to significant disease (retinitis, hepatitis, anaemia, pneumonia, or encephalitis).
Babies born to mothers infected with CMV during pregnancy may develop congenital CMV disease.
Healthcare professionals diagnose CMV infections by culturing the virus, discovering CMV DNA in the infected person, or discovering CMV antibodies, states meddo.
Antiviral remedies can improve prognosis in individual patients with cytomegalovirus infections.
There's no commercially available CMV vaccine. Experimental vaccines have been analyzed.
What's cytomegalovirus (CMV) and cytomegalovirus disease?
Based on meddo specialists, cytomegalovirus (pronounced si-to-MEG-a-lo-virus), or CMV, is a virus which belongs to the Herpesviridae family, thus its old title, "human herpesvirus 5 (HHV 5)". Other members of the family contain herpes simplex viruses (which cause cold sores and genital herpes), varicella-zoster virus (which causes chickenpox and shingles), and Epstein-Barr virus (which causes infectious mononucleosis, also known as"mono"). After primary infection, this type of viruses may infect several body systems and stay dormant in these cells for a lifetime. This is known as"latent" disease.
The latent disease can"reactivate" later in life to induce disease. Primary infection with CMV is typical and might be asymptomatic. Principal CMV is among the usual causes of mononucleosis, or flu-like syndromes, such as fever, fatigue, malaise, and other ailments. Primary infection with CMV was known as"heterophile-negative" mononucleosis as it causes disease like Epstein-Barr virus. However, the outcomes of a heterophile antibody test for EBV will be unfavourable.
CMV disease occurs in people of all ages worldwide. Experts estimate that over half of their adult population in the USA was infected with CMV, and 80 per cent of adults have experienced the disease by the time they're 40 years old. About one in 150 children is born with CMV disease (congenital cytomegalovirus), states meddo.
Most girls (about 30 per cent of cases) have babies with congenital cytomegalovirus disease pass it to the infant when their latent CMV reactivates (becomes busy at the bloodstream ) through pregnancy. Just about 1%-7% of girls are infected for the first time together with CMV (main CMV) throughout pregnancy, but 30%-40% of these will probably pass it on to the infant (congenital CMV).
Congenital cytomegalovirus disease causes more complications that the earlier in pregnancy, the virus has been passed by the mother. About 10%-15% of infants with it will have symptoms at birth, and around 60 per cent of them will have severe complications in the future.
Of infants infected but born with no symptoms of CMV, some could grow deafness in the months following arrival. Although infections are the minority of cases of miscarriage or pregnancy loss, CMV is the top disease to induce miscarriages.
What causes cytomegalovirus disease?
Immediate contact with human body fluids from an infected individual exposes someone to CMV. Most healthy children and adults don't experience any symptoms following infection with CMV. But, CMV can cause significant disease in people who have a weakened immune system (like people with HIV/AIDS or people taking drugs that suppress resistance ). CMV may lead to retinitis (blurry vision and blindness), painful swallowing (dysphagia), pneumonia, diarrhoea (Illness ), and numbness or weakness in the legs.
What are the risk factors for cytomegalovirus disease?
Individuals at risk for CMV contain young kids and adults working closely together, individuals who experience blood transfusions, multiple sexual partners, and formerly uninfected men and women who get a CMV-infected organ or bone marrow transplant.
Individuals at risk for complications in CMV disease include pregnant women and their fetus (congenital cytomegalovirus disease ) and people with a weakened immune system, like people that are HIV-infected, people that are recent organ transplant recipients, cancer patients, or people that are taking drugs which may curb their immune system. Cell-mediated immunity is especially crucial in preventing CMV reactivation and opportunistic infections.
What kinds of disorder does reactivation of latent cytomegalovirus cause?
Latent CMV disease only infrequently reactivates in healthy adults. Adults at risk for life-threatening reactivation with CMV disease include immunosuppressed people as a result of advanced HIV disease, those who receive intensive chemotherapy or immune-suppressing medications, or people who receive organ or bone marrow transplants.
There's growing evidence from both human and animal studies that CMV-induced inflammation in blood vessels can play a role in atherosclerosis, or"hardening of the arteries". Atherosclerosis might lead to cardiovascular disease stroke. Ischemic heart disease was observed to happen more frequently in animal and human organ transplant recipients with CMV.
