Seroprevalence of toxoplasmosis, rubella, cytomegalovirus, herpes simplex, and syphilis infections among pregnant women and infants in Malaysia: a systematic review and meta-analysis
PeerJ·
- DOI
- 10.7717/peerj.21632
- PMID
- —
- PMCID
- —
- OpenAlex
- W7203660052
- Study type
- Systematic review
- Publisher
- PeerJ
- Article type
- journal-article
- Integrity
- current
Why this research matters now
The elevated detection rates indicate that routine maternal testing may help identify vulnerable pregnancies and potentially reduce pathogen transfer to offspring.
Structured evidence summary
Research question
The investigation sought to quantify pooled antibody detection rates for five specific maternal and neonatal pathogens across Malaysia.
Study design
Researchers conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis synthesizing data from nineteen previously published reports.
Population and setting
The analysis focused exclusively on expectant mothers and newborns documented in Malaysian literature.
Main findings
Aggregated data revealed a combined positivity rate of 32.5 percent, with infants exhibiting slightly higher markers than mothers. Cytomegalovirus showed the strongest antibody presence, while syphilis markers were the least common.
Public-health relevance
The elevated detection rates indicate that routine maternal testing may help identify vulnerable pregnancies and potentially reduce pathogen transfer to offspring.
Important limitations
The synthesis encountered substantial statistical heterogeneity across the included datasets, and the analysis relied solely on a limited collection of published summaries rather than primary clinical records.
GIDS interpretation
This work offers a consolidated epidemiological snapshot of specific congenital infection markers within a defined regional context, applying standard meta-analytic methods to aggregate historical literature.
Related GIDS surveillance
Literature context does not validate, explain, or change a surveillance signal. Exact and contextual relationships are shown separately.
Evidence relationships
This article has 9 auditable classifier relationships to diseases, places, topics, and study design.