Bad News For Herpes Treatment

A study published online in The Lancet on January 4 contained some depressing news about suppressive therapy for herpes -- it doesn't work nearly as perfectly as most people would like. Although standard doses of acyclovir significantly reduced the amount of viral shedding in people with genital herpes, breakthrough episodes still occurred. Furthermore, those episodes were independent of drug adherence, which suggests that there's a limit to how effective suppressive treatment with acyclovir will ever be.

When the scientists looked at the efficacy of treatment in people with frequent outbreaks - frequent being defined as four or more outbreaks a year - the treatment statistics were even worse. When comparing drugs, high dose acyclovir was slightly better at reducing shedding than standard dose valcylovir, and high dose valcylovir worked even better than that. However, even in the best case scenario, herpes virions were still seen in more than 3 percent of collected swabs.

What does this mean for patients with herpes? You can not rely upon suppressive therapy to keep your sexual partners safe. Suppressive therapy may help, but you also must use barriers consistently and correctly, even when you have no symptoms. Protection still won't be perfect, but it's better than relying on drugs alone.

• Suppressive Therapy & Herpes Transmission
• Asymptomatic Shedding

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Source: http://std.about.com/b/2012/01/16/bad-news-for-herpes-treatment.htm

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