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Transmission of cytomegalovirus in the Gambia
1Department of Medical Microbiology, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, Nigeria.
One hundred and seventy-eight Gambian women in their late 3rd trimester plus babies born to them, and later on some 11 randomly selected CMV positive and 11 CMV negative infants with their mothers and siblings, were examined serologically, and virologically for the evidence of cytomegalovirus infection with a view to determining who is infecting who and how, in this community. There was significant correlation between CMV positive infants and CMV infection in their siblings, whereas there was no such correlation between these infants and their CMV positive mothers. Children under five years excreted more CMV and for a longer time in all their samples than the corresponding samples and in all specimens from their mothers. Urine had the highest amount of CMV both in the children and adults. It is concluded that children were more likely to transmit CMV to the infants and that urine through bed-wetting, was the most likely route of such transmission in Gambia and probably also in West Africa.
One hundred and seventy-eight Gambian women in their late 3rd trimester plus babies born to them, and later on some 11 randomly selected CMV positive and 11 CMV negative infants with their mothers and siblings, were examined serologically, and virologically for the evidence of cytomegalovirus infection with a view to determining who is infecting who and how, in this community. There was significant correlation between CMV positive infants and CMV infection in their siblings, whereas there was no such correlation between these infants and their CMV positive mothers. Children under five years excreted more CMV and for a longer time in all their samples than the corresponding samples and in all specimens from their mothers. Urine had the highest amount of CMV both in the children and adults. It is concluded that children were more likely to transmit CMV to the infants and that urine through bed-wetting, was the most likely route of such transmission in Gambia and probably also in West Africa.