Serological Evidence and Sociodemographic Risk Factors of Recent Cytomegalovirus Infection in Pregnant Women Attending A Tertiary Hospital in Maiduguri, Nigeria

Introduction: human cytomegalovirus (hcmv) is able to go into latency and is the most common cause of congenital infections in humans. its clinical manifestations range from asymptomatic forms to severe fetal damage, and in rare cases, fetal death due to abortion. this prospective cross-sectional study was designed to determine the seroprevalence of hcmv infection in pregnant women attending antenatal clinics of the university of maiduguri teaching hospital, nigeria, and to identify its possible risk factors. methods: blood samples were collected from 182 pregnant women aged 16 to 40 years. samples were tested for anti-cmv specific igg and igm antibodies using the commercial elisa kits. a brief structured questionnaire was used to obtain some of their sociodemographic characteristics. results: seroprevalence of cmv-specific igg and igm were 79.1% and 2.2%, respectively. of 182 women, 141 had previous exposure to cmv [igg (+) igm (-)], 3 had cmv reactivated infection [igg (+) igm (+)], 37 were susceptible to cmv [igg (-) igm (-)], and only one woman had recent infection [igg (-) igm (+)]. there was no significant association between seroprevalence and any of the studied sociodemographic data (p>0.05). conclusion: the findings of this study indicated that a large number of the studied pregnant women were non-immune (susceptible) to hcmv infection, while four of them had active hcmv infection, which places their unborn children at risk of acquiring congenital hcmv infections. therefore, it is necessary to screen pregnant women for cmv infection as part of their antenatal care and follow-up them to assess the effect that cmv might have on their fetuses.