A new treatment could someday quickly clear up even the most aggressive herpes outbreaks, a new study reveals.

Scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago discovered - quite by accident- a new treatment that effectively stopped infections of herpes 1, the same virus that causes cold sores, in the cornea.

Instead of attacking the virus itself, the medication keeps the virus from producing proteins that are key to the replication of herpes and the drug is advantageous because the virus may not become resistant to it.

The new treatment showed promise for treating herpes 1 in other locations and the researchers are ‘optimistic’ that it may be effective for genital herpes and perhaps even a broad set of viruses.

A new drug could be a revolution in treating not only ocular but oral and genital herpes

Herpes simplex virus type 1 and type 2 (HSV1 and HSV2) are two nearly genetically identical strains out of the eight in the herpes virus family that commonly affect humans.

HSV1 most commonly affects the lips, presenting as so-called cold sores.

HSV2, on the other hand, typically breaks out on and around the genitals and is primarily transmitted through sexual contact and is the more feared of the two.

Unfortunately, even condoms cannot entirely protect partners from infecting one another with the sexually transmitted disease.

Once a person is infected with the virus, it remains in their system for life, lying dormant between outbreaks.

Three medications - acyclovir, famciclovir, and valacyclovir – are antivirals that can treat either form of herpes, but nothing can cure the virus.

But many people become resistant to these drugs after taking them to suppress the virus, rendering treatment ineffective.

‘If a patient is resistant to the [current standard types of drugs] there is not much to do, so they are given similar drug,’ he says. ‘It has been shown to be effective, but better to have entirely different class of drug,’ study author Dr Deepak Shukla says.

He and his team were experimenting with a drug compound called BX795, which, they thought, would actually encourage the spread of infection in people's eyes.

About 50,000 people are diagnosed with herpes - usually type 1 - in their eyes every year in the US.

An outbreak of the viral infection on the cornea – the clear lens covering the front of the eye – can cause scar tissue and vision impairment. The only treatment for this is to replace the cornea.

In trying to understand the phenomenon, Dr Shukla and his team stumbled onto a surprising breakthrough.

‘We accidentally found that our target [for clearing up the infection] is the host cell protein, which is required for the protein synthesis for several different viruses,’ Dr Shukla explains.

‘If we are reducing the protein using this compound, it is likely that it is going to reduce the replication of several different viruses.’

They tested the compound in human cell culture models and animal models infected with herpes 1 and 2 and for each kind, it worked.

‘Is it a cure, no, I’m not sure if a cure is very possible,’ because the virus hides out in the basal ganglia, neurons deep in the brain.

‘It works, definitely for people with a new infection and for resistant ones,’ Dr Shukla says.

‘The hope is that it would also reduce latency,’ or the number of dormant virus cells ‘but would definitely reduce replication, meaning less and less neurons are infected over time. The ones already harboring the virus, there’s nothing we can do about that, but new neurons are less likely to be infected,’ in theory, if patients take the drug prophylactically in the future.