After Black Fungus was detected as one of the post-COVID complications, now cases of cytomegalovirus (CMV) are being reported from cities, such as Delhi, Pune, and Bengaluru. In Delhi’s Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, six COVID-recovered patients have been diagnosed with CMV infection. 

What is cytomegalovirus?

Cytomegalovirus, also known as Human Herpesvirus 5 (HHV-5), is a common herpes virus, which causes natural infections and sometimes also remains asymptomatic in patients. If CMV infects a person, it remains latent in the body. Those who have reported this infection were not COVID positive and the coronavirus infection was not even a month before. Patients only detected CMV after they tested negative for COVID-19 infection. 

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Symptoms

While CMV infections are mostly asymptomatic, their symptoms range from fever, fatigue to severe symptoms that can involve eyes, brain, or other internal organs. The symptoms include rectal bleeding and abdominal pain, swollen glands, mouth ulcers, inflamed liver, and inflammation of the brain (encephalitis).

“Symptoms of CMV depend on which part of the body it is affecting. If it has direct involvement of lungs, the patient will have a fever, difficulty in breathing, chest pain or cough. The patients that were admitted to Apollo after 20-30 days of testing COVID-19 positive were detected with conditions like hypoxia, inflammation in the lungs and liver, and one of them was a known case of acute myeloid leukemia,” Dr Athar Ansari, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals told Livemint. 

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How cytomegalovirus is connected to COVID?

When a person is COVID-infected, the medicines used for the disease’s treatments such as steroids, suppress their immunity and make them prone to uncommon infections. 

“All patients presented with low lymphocyte count (6% to 10% as against a normal of 20% to 40%) indicating COVID-induced suppression of immunity can be predisposed to symptomatic reactivation of CMV infection,” Dr Kirti Sabnis, Infectious Disease Specialist at Fortis Hospitals told The Indian Express. 

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How can it be treated?

While there is no specific cure for CMV, medicines can help treat the symptoms of the virus. But medications can only suppress the virus and cannot completely remove it from the body. 

The cytomegalovirus exists in 80-90% of the Indian population however it never shows symptoms due to inherent immunity, doctors say, reported news agency PTI. 

Delhi’s Ganga Ram Hospital in June reported five cases of cytomegalovirus-related rectal bleeding, one of whom died.

In May, Congress leader and Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Satav, while recovering from COVID-19, died of cytomegalovirus infection as he had developed fibrosis in the lungs.