Risk of cytomegalovirus infection among educators and health care personnel serving disabled children.
To determine the risk of cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection for personnel who provide services to young disabled children, we studied the prevalence of CMV infection among such children and determined the seroconversion rate among exposed personnel. The prevalence of CMV excretion was 9.8% among children aged 0 to 5 years in a University-based outpatient program vs. 3.3% in 3- to 5-year-old children attending community-based preschools. Initial serologic studies of personnel demonstrated no differences in CMV seropositivity rates among staff with occupational child contact vs. staff without such contact (40% (40 of 99) vs. 34% (26 of 77] (P = 0.37). However, 21 of the 31 personnel 40 years and older who had occupational child contact were seropositive vs. 10 of 26 personnel of comparable age who had no occupational child contact (P = 0.026). During a 1-year follow-up, 2 of 86 (2.3%) susceptible personnel seroconverted. Rates were 4.4% (2 of 45) among staff with occupational child contact vs. no seroconversions (0 of 41) for those without (P = 0.27). These results indicate that the risk of CMV infection for personnel who work with disabled children is low. However, we cannot exclude the possibility that there may be a small cumulative risk of CMV infection that may exceed that of adults who do not have occupational contact with children.