[Sero-epidemiologic study of Epstein-Barr virus markers in patients without mononucleosis at a department for infectious diseases]

Abstract

The authors have screened sera samples of 1817 unselected patients of not having infectious mononucleosis, admitted to their department, for Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) viruscapsid (VCA) IgM and IgG type antibody to detect the actual situation of EBV infection. The results were evaluated in age groups and in serological patterns. Their results indicated, that 80% of children became seropositive by 5-10 years of age and after 20 years, the rate of seropositivity was over 90% comparable to the reports from "developing" countries. IgM VCA antibodies were found in 103 samples (5.66%). The relatively high rate of only IgG VCA antibody-containing samples (480 cases, 26.41%) might indicate a previous EBV infection or the weakness of the cellular immunity of the given subject. Further studies are necessary to elucidate the problem.