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Pharmacy Links

SELF-HELP PREVENTION: HERPES

23rd April 2009

What is it?

A viral disease which produces cold sores on the lips, a venereal disease that is difficult or impossible to cure, and a potentially fatal infection in newborn babies.

Although many think of herpes as a new disease this is not so-it has been around since ancient times. What is new is the extent of the disease in society and this was almost certainly brought about by the sexual revolution of the 1960s. The larger number of sexual partners that this social change has brought about has meant that any venereal infection spreads more quickly than before. Coupled with this is a greater readiness to experiment with new sexual techniques. Thirty years ago oral sex was considered a perversion but over the last twenty years it has become fashionable. Now the transfer of the virus from the mouth to the genitals is a major source of the disease. Lastly, as with polio virus, about fifty years ago most children would have contracted the herpes virus and would have built up at least some resistance to it. Today this is less likely. Having had oral herpes (cold sores) affords at least some protection against the genital variety but the level of such protection is not great.

Herpes became the media scare story of the 1970s, and understandably so, with stories of an ‘incurable’

disease which killed babies of affected mothers, produced intermittent, long-term infections in adults, might be implicated in cancer of the cervix, had serious harmful effects on people’s sex lives, and so on.

Herpes is caused by the herpes simplex virus that is related to the chickenpox virus, the glandular fever virus and cytomegalovirus. Although, as with other viral infections, the virus can affect many different parts of the body, the real scare (and what this piece is about) is genital herpes.

In a man herpetic sores can affect any part of the penis and scrotum but they are most often seen on the head of the penis. The sores are painful and the glands in the groins enlarge. Herpes can also affect the area around the anus and can cause extreme pain on opening the bowels.

In women the same pattern occurs as in men but with certain differences. One is that there are more ulcers and they are much more painful. Passing urine can be ‘agony’ and there can be considerable difficulty in passing urine at all in some women. The virus may attack the neck of the womb and such women have a temperature and pain in the lower abdomen as well as the other signs. An attack of thrush can also occur alongside the herpes as the woman’s local defense mechanisms break down.

Between 40 and 70 per cent of all herpes sufferers have recurrent attacks and some people go on having them for years.

What causes it?

Genital herpes is caused by two viruses, HSV1 and HSV2. The vast majority of infections with the virus are subclinical, that is they produce no effects of which the sufferer is aware. That an infection has occurred can be detected by finding antibodies to the herpes virus in the individual’s blood. The first attack of the virus tends to occur in childhood or adolescence-just as with other viral illnesses. Such attacks produce a ‘flu-like illness with relatively few local symptoms.

Herpes virus is transferred from person to person by close body contact between wet areas of the body. This is why the lips, genitals, mouth and gut are affected. The virus enters the cells and some enter sensory nerves up which they travel to clusters of nerve cells close to the spinal cord. Here they remain to produce recurrent infections over the years.