Genital Herpes Treatment

What is Herpes?

The word Herpes comes from the Greek word 'herpein', which means 'to creep'. The herpes viruses have a surprising ability to creep into the body and hide. So, they produce recurrent infections, and sometimes even remain dormant for years and then become active under suitable conditions. This property of the herpes virus was unknown to clinicians for very long and was proved only in 1950 by Burnet and Buddingh. So, it was only then that the real epidemiology of the Herpes Virus was understood. It is said that there are more than 100 varieties of the herpes virus. But, only 8 of them affect human-beings. These viruses have been named as Human Herpes Virus (HHV) and they have been numbered as 1 to 8. These viruses are known to affect both men and women. The herpes virus 1, 2 and 3 are the most commonly occurring ones. Let us study these viruses in detail now:

VIRUS	OTHER NAME	INFECTION
Human herpes virus 1 (HHV1)	Herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1)	Generally causes cold sores around the mouth (oral herpes). It can also lead to infection in the genital area (genital herpes).
Human herpes virus 2 (HHV2)	Herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV2)	Generally causes genital herpes, a sexually transmitted infection. However, it can also cause cold sores in the facial area (oral herpes).
Human herpes virus 3 (HHV3)	Varicella-zoster virus	It causes chickenpox. When the varicella zoster virus after causing chicken pox, lays dormant in the body and then gets active again later on, it causes shingles or Herpes zoster.
Human herpes virus 4 (HHV4)	Epstein-Barr virus	It is the major cause of infectious mononucleosis.

About Herpes