Disability: the High Authority for Health recommends systematic screening for cytomegalovirus during pregnancy

This is a decision that brings to an end twenty years of debate. The French High Authority for Health (HAS) ruled on Tuesday, June 17, in favor of systematic screening for cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in pregnant women during the first trimester of pregnancy. While this measure is included (and therefore budgeted for) in the Social Security Financing Act (LFSS) for 2024, its implementation was suspended pending the institution's opinion.

"This is a historic moment, the end of an inequality of access to care that was blatant and scandalous!" rejoices Yves Ville, head of the Necker-Enfants Malades maternity unit in Paris (AP-HP) , who in a recent column, considered this screening to be a "health and ethical emergency" .

"About a third of pregnant women in France are already being screened for CMV. These are well-informed women, who sometimes resist the discouragement they receive when they ask for it, and who ultimately get it," he explains. " From now on, screening will also be explained and offered to women who are unaware of it."

Because if infection by this virus is benign in the majority of cases, it can also, especially if it occurs at the beginning of pregnancy, lead to serious after-effects in the baby, such as sensory hearing loss, neurological disorders, global developmental delay or forms of paralysis. Each year in France, 800 babies are born with a handicap linked to a CMV infection contracted in utero , recalls Yves Ville. Systematic screening, which allows the implementation of preventive and/or therapeutic measures, represents a "possibility of preventing what is still the leading cause of neurosensory deficit, outside of genetic diseases" , points out the gynecologist.

While the High Council for Public Health (HCSP) has repeatedly spoken out against the implementation of this systematic screening, the HAS indicates that it took into account, in issuing its opinion, the burden represented by CMV infection during pregnancy, the inequalities in screening across the country, as well as the existence of a detection test using a simple blood test and a treatment (the antiviral valaciclovir) which can limit transmission to the foetus.

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