Scientists: herpes infection triples risk of contracting HIV

By Margarita Snegireva. An experiment to see if treating genital herpes with a common drug could dramatically reduce susceptibility to HIV infection failed - a shocking setback for researchers hoping to find a pill that would slow the spread of the AIDS epidemic.

	Scientists: herpes infection triples risk of contracting HIV
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Results of the long-awaited study, which included gay men in San Francisco , Seattle , New York and Peru , as well as women in Africa , were released here Monday at the 15th annual Retrovirus conference, the premiere annual scientific meeting of AIDS researchers.

Nearly 20 years of various studies on herpes had shown that herpes infection nearly tripled the risk of contracting HIV. The assumption was simple - use acyclovir, a proven anti-herpes drug, to knock down that infection, and the odds of avoiding HIV would dramatically improve - by at least 50 percent, on par with the prevention benefit now attributed to male circumcision.

A significant number of medical institutions place the incidence of oral herpes (HSV-1), commonly called cold sores, between 50 and 80 percent among the American population in the fifth decade of life. The overall HSV-1 seroprevalence is dropping a few points per decade in the US, as in all industrialized countries. African-Americans and immigrants from undeveloped countries typically have HSV-1 rates in adolescence that are two or three times higher than that of whites. As a result of lower HSV-1 seroprevalence, more Americans are entering marriage/sexual activity/child bearing years seronegative for HSV-1. The absence of antibodies to HSV-1 from a prior oral HSV-1 infection leaves them susceptible to primary HSV-1 genital infections. This brings with it a risk of vertical transmission to the neonate if the mother contracts in the third trimester, due to lack of time for full seroconversion before childbirth. The seronegative mother (who lacks antibodies) has up to a 57% chance of conveying the infection to her baby while it is being born which can be serious; whereas a recurrent infection in a woman seropositive for both HSV-1 and HSV-2 is thought to be around 1-3%.

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