For example,
Recommends systematic screening during pregnancy:
In the event of negative or unknown serological status.Kitsawet Saethao / iStock / Getty Images Plus / via Getty Images
Résumé
In an opinion published in early June, the High Authority for Health (HAS) recommends setting up systematic screening for cytomegalovirus infection (CMV), in the first trimester of pregnancy, in all pregnant women whose serological status is negative or unknown.
Until now, health authorities have not recommended this screening.
To date. Meanwhile, around a third of pregnant women, however, benefit from this screening in France, but it is heterogeneously carried out on the national territory.
The HAS recommends supporting the implementation of the screening system:
- 
. Nevertheless,
- by providing information supports for pregnant women;
- by strengthening the training of health recommends systematic screening during pregnancy professionals;
- by assessing diagnostic tools;
- By ensuring good use of valaciclovir in the event of use in pregnant women, in particular to reduce the risk of kidney toxicity. Meanwhile,

. Meanwhile,
If the ministry decides to follow this recommendation, the HAS recommends carrying out an assessment 3 years after the implementation of screening. Furthermore, The results of this evaluation will condition the renewal of this device. Similarly,
LA High Authority for Health (HAS) issued a favorable opinion on systematic screening for cytomegalovirus (CMV) infection in pregnant women whose serological status is negative or unknown [1, 2]. In addition, it conditions the renewal of this system to an assessment carried out after a period of 3 years.
Screening to prevent the after -effects of a fetal exposure to CMV – Recommends systematic screening during pregnancy
The objective of systematic screening is to prevent potentially serious consequences recommends systematic screening during pregnancy in the unborn child. Similarly, As a reminder, CMV infection can cause serious, hearing and neurological damage, in case of maternal infection (cf. Framed 1).
To establish its recommendation. Therefore, the HAS has taken into account a set of technical, medical and sociological elements:
- The burden represented by CMV infection;
- performance of serological tests;
- data on valaciclovir processing;
- potential benefits of screening;
- ethical issues;
- practices in France and recommendations abroad.
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A recommendation breaking with the previous positions
The new HAS recommendation is being broken with those issued in previous years. Until now. French health authorities have not recommended systematic screening for lack of recommends systematic screening during pregnancy evidence on the effectiveness of treatments and uncertainties concerning the benefit/risk ratio.
In 2024. the High Public Health Council (HCSP) had indeed maintained its position issued in 2018 against the systematic implementation of this screening during pregnancy (cf. our article of February 15, 2024).
« However. the gradual dissemination of screening and the growing use of Valaciclovir, despite the absence of MA, led to a questioning of this position »note the HAS in the introduction of its opinion published in June 2025 and made at the request of the Directorate General of Health (DGS).
Although not recommended. CMV screening is carried out at around a third of pregnant women in France, but heterogeneously on the territory, « which induces care inequalities ».
In pregnant women with seronegative or unknown serological status
The realization of this screening must be scheduled in the first trimester recommends systematic screening during pregnancy of pregnancy in all pregnant women seronegative or unknown serological status. The sequence of recommended serological screening examinations (IGM. IGG, IGG avidity) will be integrated into the list of exams offered to pregnant women in the first trimester of pregnancy.
A recommendation under conditions
At the end of its analysis, the HAS conditions systematic screening for the following requirements:
- inform pregnant women in order to guarantee their free and enlightened consent and to make them aware of preventive hygiene measures intended to limit the risk of infection, especially in seronegative women;
- Train professionals As part of the deployment of the system, in order to ensure homogeneous implementation and in accordance with recommendations;
- assess the tools diagnostic, that is to say the performance of screening tests;
- Support the proper use of valaciclovir in pregnant women to take into account the nephrotoxic risk (cf. recommends systematic screening during pregnancy Framed 2).

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Valaciclovir is the only drug treatment currently available to limit CMV transmission to the fetus in case of maternal seropositivity.
The data available on this processing shows no teratogenicity signal (anomaly or fetal deformation) over the period 2007-2023. 
. To limit the nephrotoxic risk associated with valaciclovir in the event of treatment in pregnant women, the HAS issues the following recommendations:
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And new data to collect
The HAS also advocates the realization of studies to lift the uncertainties concerning:
- National epidemiological data (maternal seroprevalence, frequency and severity of neonatal complications and in children) ;
- Efficiency and security data on valaciclovir:
- the safety of valaciclovir over the long term and on a larger scale,
- The effect of valaciclovir on fetus/newborn infections (frequency and severity of neonatal complications and in children),
- Monitoring the development of complications in the newborn in the medium and long term, for which mothers would have been treated during their pregnancy by Valaciclovir, by means of prospective studies under real conditions;
- The overall performance of the test sequence (IGG, IGM, IGG avidity) including the diagnostic confirmation test ;
- The frequency, in real life, of situations requiring a resumption of serology in pregnant women, in particular the avidity of IGG, through prospective observational studies.
recommends systematic screening during pregnancy
The Ministry of Health to decide
It is now up to the Ministry of Health to decide on the implementation or not of this screening, in accordance with the HAS recommendations and considering the conditions and limits set by the latter.
According to article 44 of the social security financing law for 2024 [3] which provides for this screening. a decree determining the procedures for implementing the program must be published. It is also planned that « The government gives the Parliament a report on the assessment of the program. no later than a year after its implementation ».
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