A seroepidemiologic study of cytomegalovirus infection in a Canadian recruit population

The prevalence of antibodies to cytomegalovirus (CMV) was investigated in a population of Canadian male and female military recruits entering a basic-training session in Nova Scotia. Of 660 incoming recruits, 119 (18.0%) had IgG and/or IgM antibodies to CMV detectable by a latex agglutination procedure. There was no statistically significant difference between the prevalence of CMV antibodies among male recruits (16.2%) and that among female recruits (21.8%) (p = .085). The prevalence of antibodies to CMV in this recruit population is similar to that in the general Canadian population. During the 8- to 10-week training session, 1.7% of the recruits (.8% of the males and 3.6% of the females) seroconverted to become seropositive for antibodies to CMV. There was some equivocal evidence that the females had a higher CMV seroconversion rate than did the males (p = .030). There was no significant difference between the geometric mean titers of the male and female recruits who seroconverted. This seroconversion rate suggests that CMV transmission was low during the training session even though physical crowding was present.