1Departments of Virology and Internal Medicine.
2Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh.
Abstracts of Research Papers Presented during the National Symposium of Indian Virological Society at Unit of Plant Virology, Division of Plant Pathology, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi-110 012, October 14–1.
Aplastic anaemia is characterized by pancytopenia with hypoplastic bone marrow. Various factors including viral infections have been implicated as the precipitating factors. Human Parvovirus B19 has been associated with red cell aplasia, leucopenia and thrombocytopenia. the present study was thus carried out to look for the role of Parvovirus B19 in aplastic anaemia patients.
Serum samples from 25 aplastic anaemia patients and 20 apparently healthy controls were tested for the presence of Parvovirus B19 specific IgM antibodies by Micro ELISA. Parvovirus B19 IgM antibody was detected in significantly higher number of patients in comparison to the control (36% vs 5%; P<0.05). The presence of Parvovirus B19 IgM antibody in aplastic anaemia patients indicates acute infection or infection within the recent past. However, more study is needed to explore the mechanism of bone marrow aplasia due to Human Parvovirus B19 infection.
