Herpes virus spreading worldwide

Tony Pugh reports at McClatchy DC,

Nearly seven in 10 people under age 50 – more than 3.7 billion teens and adults worldwide – are infected with herpes simplex virus type 1, a highly infectious and incurable disease, the World Health Organization announced Wednesday.

More than 1 billion people are infected with HSV-1 in the Western Pacific region, while Southeast Asia has nearly 1 billion cases, according to WHO’s first global estimates, published Wednesday in an article in the journal PLOS ONE.

More than 700 million people are infected in Africa, nearly 400 million in Europe and 320 million in North and South America.

Known as “oral herpes” and typically spread through kissing, oral sex and the use of shared objects like eating utensils, HSV-1 typically causes cold sores around the mouth. But it can also cause genital herpes, which leads to painful blisters and ulcers in the anal and genital areas.

...the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated that 54 percent of Americans carry the virus.

After infection through oral secretions or skin sores, the oral herpes virus settles in nerve tissue at the top of the spine, while genital herpes sets up shop in the base of the spine. Once activated, both move up nerve pathways to the skin’s surface, sometimes without signs or symptoms.

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