Infectious diseases >>>> Cytomegalovirus infection in adults

Cytomegalovirus infection in adults.

Cytomegalovirus infection is an infectious disease of viral etiology caused by the Cytomegalovirus hominis virus from the herpesvirus family. Cytomegalovirus survives in all biological fluids of a person, which determines the pathways for the spread of cytomegalovirus infection:

sexually,
through saliva,
blood,
during transplantation,
breast milk.

According to statistics, the most frequent routes of infection with cytomegalovirus are saliva, sexual intercourse, from a pregnant woman to a fetus (through blood or during childbirth).

For a long time, cytomegalovirus infection may not make itself felt, due to the fact that cytomegalovirus does not manifest itself in any way. Then they talk about the latent form of the course of the disease.

The activity of cytomegalovirus increases in conditions when the human body is weakened by chronic diseases (especially bacterial, fungal or viral chronic infections), has weak immunity, has insufficiently formed immunity (in children), or is aging.

Cytomegalovirus infection is especially dangerous for people who have undergone organ transplants, patients with leukemia, infected with HIV, and unborn babies in the womb.

Signs of cytomegalovirus infection appear in the acute period of its course (several weeks):

Chills,
Elevated temperature,
Profuse drooling,
Whitish plaque in the mouth,
Inflammatory processes in the internal organs that are not amenable to antibacterial therapy and treatment with anti-inflammatory drugs,
frequent diseases of viral and bacterial infections with a weak body resistance.

It is not possible to diagnose a virus in conditions when it does not manifest itself in any way, unless one assumes the presence of such a virus in the body. You can conduct an immunological blood test and identify antibodies that the human immune system produces for the presence of this virus. These antibodies will be markers indicating the presence of cytomegalovirus infection in the body.

Treatment of cytomegalovirus infection is aimed at supporting immunity and suppressing the activity of cytomegalovirus, which, with proper treatment, again goes from an acute form to a latent one and does not make itself felt. For these purposes, immunostimulants are used in injectable form and in the form of suppositories, hyperimmune cytomegalovirus immunoglobulin of the IgG class (human), directional antiviral drugs (Ganciclovir, Valganciclovir, Foscarnet, Tsidofovir).

Prevention of cytomegalovirus infection consists in eliminating all human contact with the environments in which the virus can reside. The difficulties of prevention lie in the fact that it is practically impossible to protect a person from sexual intercourse, and the latent form of the course of the disease does not cause fear in people who are in close contact with each other.