March 19, 2009

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – An important cause of neurological impairment in infants — infection with cytomegalovirus while they are in the womb — may be curbed with the use of a new vaccine.

Most adults have been infected with cytomegalovirus or CMV, usually with negligible consequences. However, when women become infected with CMV for the first time while they are pregnant, there is a danger that their baby will also be infected. In some cases, this “congenital” CMV infection can lead to permanent defects such as hearing loss, vision loss, mental disability, lack of coordination, or seizures.

Now, a study in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine reports that a newly developed CMV vaccine reduces cases of CMV infection in women and has the potential to decrease congenital CMV infection.

“The development of a vaccine for the prevention of congenital CMV infection was listed as a top priority for the US by a committee of the Institute of Medicine in 2001,” Dr. Robert F. Pass, from the University of Alabama, Birmingham, and colleagues point out in the report.

Finding an effective CMV vaccine, however, has been a challenge. The first trials of a CMV vaccine began over three decades ago. In the present trial, the researchers tested a vaccine containing a protein found on the envelope of cytomegalovirus and an adjuvant to increase the immune response.

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