Genital herpes due to HSV-1
Question:
I have read that about 50% of primary outbreak cases of genital herpes are caused by HSV-1. Wow, this surprised me as the figures are huge and probably millions of Americans are infected with genital herpes caused by HSV-1.
My questions are, do they reoccur frequently, or the breakouts keep coming back for a small percentage of people. While many would only get primary outbreaks and hardly anything after that.
Is not having oral sex the only way of not passing the infection to others.
Answer:
I know it’s correct that HSV-I is the cause of 1/3 to 1/2 of the NEW genital Herpes cases.
It’s not certain if it’s correct that of all genital Herpes cases, 90% are HSV-II and 10% are HSV-I. But if that stat is correct, it could still make sense that when you include ALL the old, existing genital Herpes cases, HSV-II still makes up the bulk of them, even if among the NEW cases, HSV-I is contributing to nearly half of them.
Yes, abstaining from receiving oral sex from partners who have OHSV-I or using barrier protection is the only way to really prevent the chance of getting GHSV-I. But, typically GHSV-I is milder, causing fewer outbreaks, sometimes less severe OBs, and the rate of asymptomatic shedding is very low, making transmission of GHSV-I rare in the absence of symptoms.
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