Abstract: Objective To explore the latent virus carrying in patients with sepsis, and analyze the relationship between latent viral distribution and outcomes in sepsis patients so as to provide evidence for early antiviral treatment. Methods Patients with sepsis treated in ICU of the Peking University Areospace School of Clinical Medicine from January 2017 to January 2018 were enrolled in the experimental group, non septic patients matched by age and sex in the same period served as the control group. Venous blood samples were collected for PCR detection. The virus carrying status was compared between two groups, and the prognosis of sepsis patients was analyzed. Results Sixty-one patients with sepsis and 61 cases of non sepsis patients were included in this study. Six virus strains were detected, including CMV (19, 15.6%), EBV (39, 31.9%), HSV (10, 8.1%), HHV (9, 7.3%), RuBV (7, 5.7%), AdV(2, 1.6%). The proportion of patients with positive virus in sepsis was higher than that of non sepsis group. The positive rates of CMV(21.3% vs 9.8%), EBV (47.5% vs 13.1%) and RuBV (8.2% vs 3.3%) in the sepsis group were higher than those in non-sepsis group(all P< 0.05). The proportion of patients with two or more types of virus in the sepsis group was also higher than non-sepsis group.In the sepsis group, the positive rate of virus detection increased as the duration of continuous hospitalization prolonged. Among the sepsis patients, the average length of hospital stay was longer in patients detected positive of CMV and EBV than negative patients(19.76±4.21) d vs (17.22±3.66) d; (26.02±5.27) d vs (20.11±4.06) d, P< 0.05, respectively. The mortality rate of EBV positive patients with sepsis was higher than that of negative patients (49.1% vs 36.6%, P< 0.01). Conclusion The detection rate of latent virus in ICU sepsis patients is higher than that in non-septic patients. CMV and EBV are the most common seen strains.