Hello Science Lovers, Trust you're having a blissful Sunday
I was randomly chatting with a friend when a topic of Genitalia Herpes came up. There seems to be a lot of misconceptions people had about this disease, and he wanted to confirm what was the real deal.
So here's the big question:
Is Genitalia Herpes curable?
The simple answer is NO
Genital Herpes is one of those infections you don't really want to catch, not because it cannot be managed but because of the singular fact that it cannot be completely cured. But there's an interesting part to this not curable and to for better clarity, I will be comparing Malaria, Typhoid fever and then Herpes itself.
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Malaria
This Is a parasitic infection that is caused by Plasmodium species of which the commonest in Nigeria is Plasmodium falciparum. When you get malaria and treat yourself very well with antimalarial drugs, the parasite entirely clears from your system or blood. So to say that when you do a blood test to check for malaria parasite, the result will show zero parasites. People always argue that Nigerians always have malaria parasites in their blood, lol. That's partly true but here's the why behind that generalisation:
Nigeria is a Malaria-endemic region, that is to say that we literally live with mosquitoes and subsequently malaria. If we get malaria and we treat ourselves well, it turns zero like everyone else, but the problem is that probably before you do a repeat blood test to check if it has cleared from your system, mosquitoes have bitten you again making reinfection almost inevitable.
But now, the number of parasites in your blood is not enough to cause you to have symptoms and signs of malaria because they are below the virulence level for the disease manifestation - this is what is called the virulence level.
Typhoid Fever
Typhoid fever is a bacterial infection caused by Salmonella typhi. It's mostly gotten via faecal-oral route ( that is through contaminated water, fruits and food). Unlike malaria, this bacteria does not infect animals but only humans, hence, it has no animal reservoir.
So is typhoid fever curable?
Yes! When you get infected and you treat yourself very well with the proper antibiotics, you will recover perfectly but then, if you do a blood test (like the popular Widal test) to check if the bacteria is still in your blood, you will see them there but this time around, in small quantities that are not able to cause the disease manifestation too.
The difference between this and malaria is that malaria parasite upon treatment entirely cleared from the system but Typhoid lingers in the system at very low levels often weak to cause diseases but still detectable.
Genital Herpes
This is a viral infection caused by Herpes Simplex Virus 1( HSV-1) or Herpes Simplex Virus 2 (HSV-2) The HSV-1 is notorious for causing oral herpes manifestation in form of oral sores but can also cause the genital infections too.
The HSV-2 is notorious for causing the genitalia manifestation and has a higher recurrence rate.
So, can it be cured?
NO, unlike malaria or Typhoid, herpes never leaves the body.
Here's the catch:
When you get the disease and you take your antivirals like the acyclovir, the symptoms and manifestations like the sores resolve and heal, but then, the virus instead of leaving the system retreats and hibernates in the nerve roots at their full virulence potential of causing the disease manifestation again - the virulence level
What happens, is that when your it is triggered again by;
- Stress
- illness
- Immunosuppressive diseases
- and atimes, menstruation ,
The virus hibernating in your nerve roots starts reactivating and causes another disease outbreak.
So yeah, while herpes cannot be cured, it can be well controlled so you can live a normal life.
Hope you learned something new today!
Thanks for reading and have a nice day ahead 👍
References:
-
https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/genital-herpes
-
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10545472/
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