Drug Helps Reduce Genital Herpes Spread in Couples

Daily treatment with the anti-virus drug valacyclovir can cut the risk of spreading genital herpes by half among people who practice safe sex, a study in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine showed.

Daily treatment with the anti-virus drug valacyclovir can cut the risk of spreading genital herpes by half among people who practice safe sex, a study in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine showed. But the likelihood of transmitting the sexually transmitted disease during the eight-month study of nearly 1,500 couples was relatively low, even among those who did not take the drug, the study said. The chance of passing herpes to a partner was just 3.6 percent among 741 couples who only used safe sex practices such as using a condom and avoiding sex during an outbreak. Giving the other 743 couples valacyclovir, which costs about 20 cents a day, cut the transmission rate to 1.9 percent. But even a modest reduction could have a big public health impact because genital herpes afflict hundreds of millions of people around the world. Tests in the United States have shown that 22 percent of adults are infected with the virus that causes painful, blistering outbreaks. In some parts of the world, up to 89 percent of sex workers show evidence of the incurable infection. “These results have enormous clinical implications,” said Clyde Crumpacker of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston in an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine. He said the findings prompted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in August to approve valacyclovir for the prevention of herpes. The drug is sold under the brand name Valtrex by GlaxoSmithKline, which funded the study. Valtrex, previously approved for controlling herpes outbreaks, can cause kidney problems and affect the nervous system, sparking aggression, movement disorders, confusion and hallucinations. (Source: Reuters Health News: January 2004)