Seroprevalence of Cytomegalovirus Antibodies and Primary Infection among Women and Infants in Iran: A Meta-Analysis

Background Seroprevalence of Cytomegalovirus infection varies between 40% and 100% worldwide. Different studies carried out in Iran indicate this variation in this country. It is important to estimate the total infection prevalence using a reliable method such as meta- analysis in order to be applied by policymakers. This study aims to estimate the IgG and IgM seroprevalences of CMV infection among Iranian women and neonates. Method We selected eligible articles for final meta- analysis by searching the national and international databases, excluding duplicates and irrelevant papers from primarily identified studies after abstract/full text review, implementing exclusion/inclusion criteria and quality assessment. Standard error of the prevalence was calculated according to binomial distribution formula. Based on the degree of heterogeneity, fixed or random effects models were applied for estimating the pooled prevalences. Results In this study, 16 papers providing 20 evidences of CMV prevalence in Iran entered in the meta- analysis. CMV IgG and IgM seroprevalences as well as primary infection rate (95% confidence interval) among pregnant women were 92.8% (90.6 - 94.9), 6.4% (2.8 - 9.9) and 1.1% (0.7 - 1.5) respectively. CMV IgM seroprevalence among neonates were 0.6% (0.09 - 1.2), while CMV IgG and CMV IgM seroprevalences among non-pregnant women were 78.4% (70 - 86.8) and 4.6% (1.5 - 7.6) respectively. Conclusions This meta- analysis showed that the prevalence of CMV infection among studied population is relatively high. Therefore, mortality, complications, anomalies and injuries among fetuses, neonates and immunocompromized patients can be partially related to the CMV infection.