How does HSV1 work?
Once someone has contracted the HSV-1 virus, it lasts forever. There is no known treatment that can completely rid the body of the HSV-1 virus. Most of the time, the virus remains dormant in the ganglia – the nerve cells near the neck, mouth or nose, out of reach from the body’s natural defences. This period of inactivity is called “latency”. Every now and again, the virus becomes active and travels down the nerve to the skin’s surface where it tries to replicate itself in the nuclei of the cells. This is called “recurrence”. In many people no symptoms appear even though the cells are infected. However, in some people, the virus’s replication process destroys the cells it has invaded and causes blisters or ulcers to form on the skin where there are a large number of nerve endings (i.e. around the mouth). This is known as an outbreak or cold sore. After just a few days, the virus mostly retreats back to the ganglia, leaving the cold sore to finish its outbreak.
