June 1997
Who's Sore-y Now?
by Walter Armstrong and Ronnilyn Pustil
Herpes harbors high levels of HIV
Everybody knows that the rate of HIV in people with herpes and other STDs is much higher than in others. It’s those nasty flare-ups—they facilitate transmission, right? Well, new data suggest it’s more complicated than that. Now researchers have found high concentrations of HIV in genital-herpes sores, suggesting that during outbreaks, large amounts of the virus are emitted. The University of Washington study’s head, Dr. Timothy Shacker, advises that wider use of such anti-herpes drugs as acyclovir and famciclovir could lower the risk of transmission by decreasing levels of HIV in the lesions.
