BOSTON - A common herpes virus that infects healthy adults, but rarely harms them - cytomegalovirus (CMV) - is now recognized as a major threat to newborns. More than 40,000 children in the United States are infected with CMV at birth each year, and as many as 8,000 of them suffer major consequences, including hearing loss and reduced IQ, says clinical researcher Richard Whitley of the University of Alabama, Birmingham.
Speaking here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (editor science NOW), Whitley estimated national economic loss due to CMV more than 1 billion $ annually. Whitley said this makes it one of the biggest health risks of US children - comparable to infectious agents such as Haemophilus influenzae that has received much attention in the past
CMV infection, which often. coexists with HIV, has attracted the attention of pharmaceutical companies in the 190s when the HIV infection rates were climbing, pharmaceutical R & D investment in this area has increased in parallel. But when combined drug treatments more effective began to reduce the incidence of HIV, CMV infections have fallen in parallel; records show a sharp drop off opportunistic CMV eye infections (CMV retinitis) in adults since 1997. Since then, Whitley and other speakers have said, pharmaceutical companies have reduced support for anti-CMV drugs because the potential market fell.
currently available drugs to treat CMV, Whitley and others at the meeting of the AAAS noted, are far from ideal. They cause side effects, life-threatening and must be injected intravenously (or in the case of CMV retinitis, directly in the eye). Whitley and several others - including Leroy Townsend of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and Karen Biron SmithKline Beecham - describes new compounds, they help develop that could possibly be used as oral drugs to fight against CMV. None has yet been approved by the Food and Drug Administration.
Related Sites
The site Whitley
Information on CMV Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
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