Epstein-Barr virus (VCA) IgG ELISA

Enzyme immunoassay for the qualitative determination of IgG antibodies against Epstein-Barr virus (VCA) in human serum or plasma. Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a member of the herpesvirus family (Gamma subgroup, DNA virus of 120-200 nm) and one of the most common human viruses. The virus occurs worldwide, and most people become infected with EBV sometime during their lives. Transmission of the virus is almost impossible to prevent since many healthy people can carry and spread the virus intermittently for life. Infants become susceptible to EBV as soon as maternal antibody protection disappears. Infection of children usually causes no symptoms. Infection during adolescence or young adulthood causes infectious mononucleosis 35% to 50% of the time. Infectious mononucleosis is almost never fatal. There are no known associations between active EBV infection and problems during pregnancy, such as miscarriages or birth defects. Although the symptoms of infectious mononucleosis usually resolve in 1 or 2 months, EBV remains dormant or latent in a few cells in the throat and blood for the rest of the person’s life. Periodically, the virus can reactivate and is commonly found in the saliva of infected persons. This reactivation usually occurs without symptoms of illness. EBV also establishes a lifelong dormant infection in some cells of the body’s immune system. A late event in a very few carriers of this virus is the emergence of Burkitt´s lymphoma and nasopharyngeal carcinoma, but EBV is probably not the sole cause of these malignancies.

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