Cures for genital herpes

There are virtually more than a million people who suffer from genital herpes infection each year.

What makes this even more shocking is the fact that there exists no cure yet for the dreaded herpes simplex or HSV virus. There are no cures for genital herpes but treatments available for alleviating the symptoms.

Focus on cures

Many scientists want to find a cure for genital herpes soon. This is primarily because people with genital herpes infection are also more likely to contract AIDS because of their skin lesions, which are ports of entry for the AIDS virus. In addition, since such genetal herpes patients have a weakened immunity, they are bigger targets for HIV or AIDS viruses.

The intriguing aspect about the HSV virus is that it resides silently inside the nervous system and when activated because of certain foods, it comes up to the skin surface where it replicates.

This process is called shedding and is the most contagious part of the genital herpes outbreak. Many a cure for genital herpes focus on trying to mitigate this shedding stage.

Scientists have found that a particular amino acid called lysine is successful in curtailing the rapid multiplication of the HSV virus, thereby slowing down the spread of the genital herpes infection.

Research in progress

Many scientists have discovered a portion of the specific viral genome, which causes the HSV virus to remain in dormant state during the inactive periods. They are trying to find cures for genital herpes in the form of drugs, which can switch off this dormant activity of the virus and flush it out of the system altogether.

If this is a cure for genital herpes, then the person would only suffer from one single attack after which, all HSV virus cells would be destroyed successfully. Thus, there would be no more recurrences of this dreaded genital herpes outbreak anytime in future. If this were to happen and cures for genital herpes were to be successful, people would never have to undergo recurrent attacks and the associated genital herpes pain.

Ongoing studies on cures

Some scientists located at National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases have located specific enzymes and genes, which cause the HSV virus to survive. If a cure for genital herpes is found in a drug, which destroys these enzymes and genes, the HSV virus would be gone forever!

In such cures for genital herpes, scientists are positive that patients suffering would be free from genital herpes outbreak permanently.

Various vaccines comprised of proteins from cell surfaces of the HSV virus, chains and peptides as well as the virus DNA are tested these days with different topical preparations to kill these compounds.

New vaccine

The past year, a company called Vical, which is a biopharmaceutical company has said they have created a vaccine containing the HSV virus DNA. In this mode of treating genital herpes, the patient would be injected with a plasmid or a circular DNA.

This plasmid encourages cells to produce proteins for HSV2. These proteins allow the immune system to fight the HSV2 virus.

While initial experiments show that mice have reacted positively to the tests, it will be a while before we see any real cures for genital herpes.

Many scientists are spending numerous hours researching for a cure for genital herpes but it will be several years before we see successful results emanating from all that research.

Meantime, one would have to make do with genital herbal herpes treatment and other antiviral ways of treating genital herpes.