Why it's hard to create a cure. Herpes is difficult to cure due to the nature of the virus. HSV infection can hide in a person's nerve cells for long periods of time before returning and reactivating the infection. Like the common cold, herpes is a widespread disease with no cure.
People infected with the herpes virus are infected for life. They have no choice but to manage outbreaks when they occur and expect less frequent outbreaks to occur in the future. The herpes virus is more complicated and more elusive than most infections. Therefore, developing a vaccine has been a difficult task.
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. Unfortunately, there is no cure for herpes.
While there is no cure for it, there are some steps you can take if you have one. With strategic care, you can prevent future herpes outbreaks and avoid the painful and uncomfortable process of treating lesions after they appear. Although several clinical trials have tested vaccines against genital herpes, there is currently no vaccine available to prevent infection. Clinical trials of herpes vaccines have proven difficult for many reasons, including asymptomatic infection and the unpredictable spread of the virus.
Ashley Thomas, an infectious disease specialist at Orlando Health in Florida, points out that the herpes virus has evolved along with humans over the centuries. Oral herpes, also known as cold sores, can be treated with a number of affordable over-the-counter (OTC) products. Thanks to Luminance RED, phototherapy has become one of the simplest and most effective ways to prevent unwanted outbreaks of genital herpes and cold sores. Go to your doctor's office, use an online pharmacy, or check your medicine cabinet to see these effective antiviral medications for genital herpes.
However, a person with oral herpes can transmit HSV-1 to another person's genital area through oral sex and vice versa. The herpes virus causes cold sores and genital herpes, as well as fatal infections in newborns, encephalitis, and corneal blindness. The CDC states that the overall statistics for genital herpes are likely to be higher, thanks to the possibility of contracting HSV-1 in the genital region. Thomas added that researchers will have to devise a few different strategies if a herpes vaccine is ever to be produced.
To make matters worse, as long as there is only a tiny amount of infection left after an outbreak subsides, herpes can easily survive and reappear in future outbreaks. Valacyclovir, also known as Valtrex, is approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat genital herpes. This medication stops the herpes virus from growing and spreading during an outbreak, although it cannot completely eliminate the virus from the body. Unfortunately, the problem with developing a herpes vaccine is that researchers cannot target the vaccine to the immune system.
Until recently, at least three pharmaceutical companies oversaw clinical trials of candidate herpes vaccines.
