The study of seroprevalence of human cytomegalovirus in healthy blood donors referring to Fars blood bank

Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV) infection is most often asymptomatic in immuno-competent individuals and has lifelong latency especially in leukocytes. However, CMV is a major cause of infection and death in immuno-compromised patients. Transfusion transmitted HCMV (TT-HCMV) can cause serious morbidity and mortality in certain patients who are at risk. In this study, we evaluated the risk of TT-HCMV infection in a seroprevalence survey of HCMV. In this descriptive cross-sectional study that was performed in a period of eight months, the blood samples were collected from 360 healthy blood donors referring to the Fars blood bank in Shiraz, Iran. The IgG and IgM antibodies to HCMV were measured by enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) test. Of 360 samples, IgG was detected in 356 sera (98.9%) samples and only 16 samples (4.4%) were IgM positive. No statistically significant association was observed between seropositivitiy rate, age, sex, number of children and educational level in the studied population. The high prevalence of HCMV observed in this study confirms the necessity of diagnosis, prevention and treatment of HCMV infection in immuno- compromised blood recipients in our community.