Herpes Transmission - Slight Confusion

[TravellingHobbyis]

How is herpes passed during protected vaginal or anal sex if no sores are present?
Where would the virus come from on the infected person and how would the recipient get it?

Would the virus be lying on top of body skin (i.e. not mucous membrane or softer skin of the shaft of the penis) and then get in through microscopic tears on the body skin of the hips, thighs, or pelvis?

 

[Health Nurse]

How is herpes passed during protected vaginal or anal sex if no sores are present?
Where would the virus come from on the infected person and how would the recipient get it?

Would the virus be lying on top of body skin (i.e. not mucous membrane or softer skin of the shaft of the penis) and then get in through microscopic tears on the body skin of the hips, thighs, or pelvis?

Hi TravellingHobbyis

The herpes simplex virus (HSV) comes to the surface of the skin along the nerve cells. It lays a sleep at the base of the spine until it is triggered.

This delivers the herpes virus to the skin surface were it can be transmitted to another person if it can get through the skin (from a cut or tear) or through the weaker mucous membrane of the other person.

This virus coming to the surface is called asymptomatic shedding, basically the virus is at the surface but the person feels fine. The amount of virus on the skin in this situation is much less than when someone has a visible herpes sore.

As the virus follows the nerve pathway it can come up any where within the “box short” area. This is how it can pass with protected sex as this entire area is not covered by a condom.

HSV is a very common infection. Not having sex while someone is having an outbreak and using a condom are two things that will really reduce your chance of getting HSV.

Here is a link for more information on HSV.
http://healthnurse.wordpress.com/fa...nsmitted-infections-sti/herpes-simplex-virus/


HN
www.healthnurse.wordpress.com
www.bccdc.ca
www.stiresource.com

 

[soulium]

According to that link in your post, women shed virus 4.3% of the time… so it means that 95% of the time HSV cannot be transmitted (i.e. no asymptomatic viral shedding)? Just trying to figure out my risks since condoms are not very effective against HSV.

 

[Health Nurse]

According to that link in your post, women shed virus 4.3% of the time… so it means that 95% of the time HSV cannot be transmitted (i.e. no asymptomatic viral shedding)? Just trying to figure out my risks since condoms are not very effective against HSV.

Hi soulium

You need the HSV virus to be shedding for there to be a risk to you.

I will have to change the information on the healthnurse site. The 4.3% shedding figure for woman was based on studies done a few years ago were they did just one swab test per day to see if there was any virus present.

Recent studies have been doing a swab test to the genitals every 6 hours. One study of 25 people found that the virus could be found on 20% of the days and 14% of the 6 hour periods.

This has changed a lot of the thinking around genital HSV. It seems that most people had no symptoms and that the virus came quickly and was gone within 12 hours from the genitals.

There information showed that there was also a lot of difference in shedding between each individual. There was a mix of men and woman in the study.

In summary it is hard to predict when there could be HSV type 2 present when having genital sex. The above gives us a bit of an idea at 14% of 6 hour periods.

Just because someone is shedding HSV doesn’t mean you will automatically catch it.

The things we know that can reduce your risk are:

(1) Condoms will reduce your risk to HSV by about 50%.
(2) Don’t have sex while someone is having an outbreak.
(3) Daily suppressive therapy with antiviral medication (some studies have shown this will reduce risk by 48%)

HN
www.healthnurse.wordpress.com
www.stiresource.com
www.bccdc.ca