14th ICID - Poster Abstracts - International Society for Infectious ...

When citing these abstracts please use the following reference:
Author(s) of abstract. Title of abstract [abstract]. Int J Infect Dis 2010;14S1: Abstract number.
Please note that the official publication of the International Journal of Infectious Diseases 2010, Volume 14, Supplement 1
is available electronically on http://www.sciencedirect.com
Final Abstract Number: 84.042
Session: Virology and Viral Infections (Non-HIV)
Date: Friday, March 12, 2010
Time: 12:30-13:30
Room: Poster & Exhibition Area/Ground Level
Type: Poster Presentation
Seroprevalence of human cytomegalovirus infection in Singapore
H. N. Leong, B. H. Tan, S. H. Lim, K. P. Chan
Singapore General Hospital, Singapore, Singapore
Background: The human cytomegalovirus virus (HCMV) is a ubiquitous betaherpesvirus,
common in all human populations, with seroprevalence of 80-100% in adults across the world.
Most infections are harmless, but it can cause congenital HCMV infection in neonates or
disseminated disease in the immunocompromised hosts. Till date, there has been scarce
seroprevalence data of this disease in our country.
Methods: A retrospective analysis of the HCMV IgG assays performed in our laboratory was
done. The period of study was from 2004 to 2007.
Results: A total of 3582 patient data were available. Duplicates and patient with missing
variables (age, sex) were removed, leaving 2042 patients (median of 707 patients per year) for
analysis. Across the 4 years of data, there was no significant difference seen in across the age
groups, sex or race. An overall seropositivity rate was 40% for the 1-10 year age group. This rises
gradually to 44%, 73%, 82%, 90%, 97% and 100% for each decade increase. The males and
females have a similar rate of acquisition of HCMV seropositivity at age group 1-10 of 40%.
However, seropositivity in females increases rapidly compared to the males in the age groups 10-
20 to 40-50 before being similar again in the older age groups. This difference becomes
statistically different in the 20-30 year age group (p=0.0024). Amongst the races, the predominant
Chinese race group has a lower seropositivity in all age groups from 1-10 to 40-50 compared to
the minority races of Indians and Malays combined. This difference was statistically different in
the 20-30 year age group (p=0.001). The differences are likely related to the social habits of each
race, and sex.
Conclusion: The result show a HCMV seroprevalence of 73% in the adult age group of 20-30.
This prevalence is higher for females and in the minority races. This data has implications in
estimating the risk for congenital CMV disease in neonates born to mothers acquiring their
primary infection during pregnancy, and risk of CMV disease in transplant programmes.