NY baby screenings add test for virus causing deafness

Starting Monday, newborns in New York will be screened for congenital cytomegalovirus — a virus that can cause deafness or other health complications for babies born with the affliction.

The free test is now part of a baby’s routine newborn screening. New York will be the second state to screen all babies for the virus after Minnesota, the state Department of Health said in a news release. 

The move comes after the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development awarded the New York State Newborn Screening Program a contract to add congenital cytomegalovirus to its screening panel provisionally, state health officials said.

The New York State Newborn Screening Program, which is used to screen for dozens of disorders, is required unless parents say they have a religious objection in writing, the state said. The newborn screening, used to test for dozens of disorders, is typically collected 24 to 36 hours after a child’s birth by pricking a heel to get a blood sample.

It’s a “monumental step,” said Dr. Andrew Handel, a pediatric infectious diseases expert at Stony Brook Children’s Hospital, of the additional screening.

He said most children born with congenital CMV who don’t show symptoms are not diagnosed as infants. Now, he said, physicians will have new insights.

“And so, by doing universal screening, we’re going to find a lot more infants who we know are infected but in the past never diagnosed,” he said.

Infants who test positive for congenital cytomegalovirus will be referred to specialists for follow-up and evaluation, state health officials said. Parents or guardians can choose not to have the results in the baby’s record. 

“Parents may receive some new information that they weren’t expecting based … on this testing,” Handel said.

A common virus, cytomegalovirus infects about one in three children by age 5 in the United States, and most adults by age 40, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on its website. Although the virus stays in a person’s body for life, it might not cause illness for a healthy immune system.

The infection in a child born with CMV is called congenital CMV, or cCMV, health officials said. Lasting health issues or symptoms happen in 1 out of 5 babies with congenital CMV, the CDC said. Most babies with the virus have good health, state health officials noted. 

Congenital cytomegalovirus symptoms can include seizures, an enlarged liver, and microcephaly, a smaller head, health officials said.