Are There Any New Treatments For Herpes?
There are no new treatments approved in the past few years, but there were many new treatments in the past few decades. When I was in medical school, there were no treatments for herpes at all. Today there are five treatments that are very effective. Herpes is a condition caused by an infection of nerves that lead to the mouth, lips and nose area, or nerves that lead to the genital organs. The infection is caused by a virus called Herpes simplex virus (also human herpesvirus-1). This virus causes a permanent infection of the nerves and remains latent or “asleep” inside the nerves most of the time. But sometime it “wakes up” and starts multiplying. This leads to the sores that we call “herpes”. This same virus can cause much more serious disease than cold sores or genital sores. So the drugs that were developed to treat common herpes infections also can be life-saving with more serious infections. The reason there were no treatments for herpes when I was in medical school is that medica
