Medications can be used to control outbreaks. There is no cure for genital herpes. However, daily use of antiviral medications can prevent or shorten outbreaks. Antiviral medicines can also reduce your chance of infecting it to others.
Keith Jerome and Martine Aubert, the Hutch virologists who are leading the research effort, report that the treatment dramatically reduced or even eliminated viral spread in treated mice compared to controls, an important milestone that scientists also hope to achieve if the experimental therapy is finally shown to be safe enough to be tested in humans. The experimental drug, a form of gene therapy, consists of an injection of millions of lab-modified viruses that have been hollowed out to carry inside them two different enzymes, small proteins that work like molecular scissors. The therapy employs three different species of these carrier viruses. Known as adeno-associated viruses or AAV, they are routinely used in gene therapies to transport genes or gene-editing proteins to target sites.
Previously, Jerome and Aubert reported that the drug can eliminate more than 90% of the latent herpesvirus in nerve groups near the face of mice injected with AAVs carrying enzymes. In this new study, they describe how they have tried therapy for the first time to treat infections in a group of nerves called dorsal root ganglia, near the genital tract of mice. They found that experimental therapy reduced the latent virus in that country by 97%. Researchers are conducting additional preclinical studies on therapy in guinea pigs, which, unlike mice, naturally have recurrent outbreaks of latent herpes infections.
As in the case of mice, the initial focus of this research is on HSV-1, which is mainly associated with cold sores. Anna Wald points out that recent studies, including one she published with colleagues from the University of Washington, point to a change. Genital herpes is probably the most dreaded and least understood sexually transmitted infection (STI). There is no cure, so people infected with herpes have it forever.
While the virus is rarely life-threatening for most people who suffer from it, it is extremely dangerous for pregnant women. A virus outbreak during pregnancy increases your risk of premature birth, and the fetus can get a fatal infection in the womb. Two years after scientists demonstrated that experimental herpes gene therapy can eliminate most latent infections in mice, new tests reveal that it also suppresses the amount of transmissible viruses transmitted by treated animals. A person can transmit herpes to their partner at any time, although they have a greater chance when they have an outbreak.
Most people with herpes don't show symptoms, but the infection can also cause painful sores and blisters. Most people don't realize that sores caused by genital herpes can appear both on the face and in the genital area. This form of herpes can cause internal and external sores and blisters in the genital area, which may appear several days, weeks, or months after exposure. It doesn't seem to involve the gene-cutting enzymes used in Hutch herpes studies, in which these molecular scissors work as expected.
Researchers have conducted several clinical trials to investigate vaccines against herpes infection, but there is currently no vaccine available on the market. If you don't get treatment for herpes, you may continue to have regular outbreaks or they may only happen rarely. Genital herpes outbreaks tend to occur less frequently and become shorter and weaker after a few years, regardless of whether they receive treatment or not. HSV-1 is becoming, particularly in the first infections in adults under 30, the leading cause of genital herpes, the most dreaded condition traditionally associated with HSV-2.This is because the mice used in these studies do not naturally reactivate latent herpes infections, which are the source of the alarming and periodic outbreaks of painful sores that recur in humans.
Herpes can hide in nerve cells for a long time before becoming active, making it difficult to find a cure. HSV-1 can also cause genital herpes if the genital areas are exposed to blisters or febrile sores on the mouth or face, or through oral sex. However, if they experience any symptoms related to herpes, they should ask all their recent sexual partners if they have or may have oral or genital herpes. He said that the work of Jerome and Aubert represents a paradigm shift in the field, because it is assumed that once a person is infected with a herpesvirus and there are eight members of that family, it is impossible to get rid of that particular strain.
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