Scientists Create A Breakthrough Vaccine To Tackle Herpes

Trending News: Coming Soon: A Groundbreaking Vaccine For This Hated STI

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One of the most widespread sexual health issues in the world is closer to getting resolved.Herpes is a huge (and incurable) health problem for many men and women across the world, and efforts to discover a cure or vaccine have so far turned up empty. A wildly new approach to the problem taken by scientists in New York is looking "very promising" and could be the solution we've been waiting for.Scientists from the U.S. are claiming to have discovered a radical new vaccine to fight the two most common forms of the herpes virus, one of the biggest STD global health problems in the world today. The researchers describe their findings as "very promising," and there's also the possibility that the vaccine could be used to cure herpes retroactively.

HSV-1 and HSV-2, the two most common forms of the virus, cause cold sores and genital sores, respectively, and right now there's no known cure or vaccine. The viruses also increase the likelihood of contracting HIV. Scientists from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York have taken a totally different approach to previous research to come up with their new treatment.

Rather than focusing on a particular glycoprotein called gD, as existing studies have, the researchers created a genetic mutant lacking gD. When injected into mice, the treatment was found to prevent herpes infections — what's more, there were no traces of the virus lurking latently inside the animals. The people behind the new drug say that both the novel way it's created and the robust way it stops infection offer hope for the future.

"We have a very promising new candidate for herpes," says William Jacobs, one of the HHMI investigators, "but this might also be a good candidate as a vaccine vector for other mucosal diseases, particularly HIV and tuberculosis. If our vaccine works in humans as it does in mice, administering it early in life could completely eliminate herpes latency."

The findings have been published in the journal eLife this month and the next step for the treatment is human testing and FDA approval. The research team is also looking for industry partners to produce large quantities of the vaccine.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question: Could herpes be eradicated within a generation?

Disrupt Your Feed: A vaccine might just cause people to become more promiscuous and less safe overall.

Drop This Fact: 1 in 6 people aged 14-49 years in the U.S. have genital herpes.

