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.
