Cytomegalovirus

What can be done to prevent the disease?

Frequent, thorough hand washing and personal hygiene should limit a few of the new cases spread from a person shedding CMV. Because CMV is so common, however, prevention is quite difficult. Special blood filters and testing of donated organs may prevent a few cases.

What are the long-term effects of the disease?

For most healthy people, a CMV infection has no long-term effects.

An unborn baby who is infected in the womb may have:

An eye infection in a person with AIDS may result in blindness. CMV pneumonia or gastrointestinal disease in transplant patients may cause death.

What are the risks to others?

People who shed CMV can pass it to others. For most people who get CMV, however, the infection is not serious.