Whos fueling the herpes epidemic??
It may be young women who don’t even know that they have the virus that causes genital herpes. They may have no symptoms, they may not have been tested and they may be actively shedding the virus in their genital tracts. They are basically infectious – and they don’t know it. The statistics are sobering. Nationwide at least 45 million people 12 and older have genital herpes. That’s one out of five adolescents or adults. It is typically caused by HSV2. A recent study looked at 127 young women who entered the study when they were 14-18 and the study then followed them for 4-6 years. Only 3 of the women had been diagnosed with herpes when the study began; the rest had never been examined. Over the course of the observational study, about 25% of the women who first tested negative, subsequently became positive for HSV2. of serious concern? Two thirds of the women were actively shedding virus when they were tested – meaning they had active disease that could be spread – but most had NO symp
