Acquisition of cytomegalovirus infection among female employees at a pediatric hospital

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Of 842 female employees at a pediatric hospital who were tested for cytomegalovirus antibody, 487 (57.8%) were seronegative. We also studied 228 females who had been employed for 3 or more months, and 139 (61.0%) were seronegative. One year after the initial serum 173 seronegative women provided a second sample. Eleven (6.4%) had seroconverted to cytomegalovirus, and none gave a history of significant illness in the interval. Of the 173 women 138 had patient contact jobs and 35 had noncontact jobs. In the contact group 10 of 138 (7.2%) seroconverted including 5 of 46 (10.9%) intensive care nurses, 2 of 11 (18.2%) women on the blood drawing or intravenous insertion team and 3 of 81 (3.7%) nurses on medical and surgical wards. In the noncontact group 1 of 35 (2.9%) seroconverted. Among female employees at a pediatric hospital the risk of cytomegalovirus is substantial and appears to be related to the type of patient contact.