Oral Sex Could Be Spreading Genital Herpes

Posting Date: 02/21/2000

Original Broadcast Date: November 3, 1999

Herpes can spread rapidly among sexually-active people who may not even be aware they have the disease, according to a major study published in The New England Journal of Medicine.

This is a study that will make people with multiple partners think twice about having oral sex.

Researchers for Chiron pharmaceuticals monitored 2,393 sexually active adults and found an increasing number of new herpes simplex virus (HSV) infections to be apparently generated from oral sex. This is because the number of oral herpes 1 virus infections was found in a number equal to new genital infections.

The study says the equal incidence in the rates of new HSV-1 in oral and genital areas indicates that sexually active people need counseling about the risk of oral-genital contact.

I don?t know what good counseling does. It seems to me people either engage in oral sex or they don?t. It?s a pretty simple decision to make.

Another interesting part of this study shows that about 40 percent of all genital herpes cases are asymptomatic, meaning there are no lesions to warn you the disease is present. In oral herpes, two-thirds of new infections were also found to be without lesions.

The point is that you can have herpes and have no outward symptoms. This is probably one reason the disease is spreading so rapidly. Most people don?t know they?re infected unless they have tests.

Source: The New England Journal of Medicine, Nov. 4, 1999

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