Resolve Herpes Guaranteed

Most people are infected by herpes viruses early in childhood – 99 percent of the population has at least one herpes virus. The most well-known is the virus that causes chickenpox. But there are many others that cause brief flu-like symptoms, and then seemingly disappear. The viruses don’t actually disappear at all – they just go “underground” in the tissues of the body. Researchers have discovered that these so-called ‘dormant’ viruses may actually be replicating at a very low level, causing cumulative damage that manifests itself in middle age. Many herpes viruses hide out in nerve tissue. People who have shingles often feel a burning pain in their nerves before the shingles appear. A certain group of herpes, viruses can hide in the connective tissue. It is theorized that these gamma viruses may be a hidden cause of rheumatoid arthritis and other connective tissue disorders. Could herpes cause Alzheimer’s disease? In another startling development, scientists have linked the Simplex I virus with Alzheimer’s disease. Apparently the Simplex I virus can lodge in brain tissue and replicate at a very low level. Inflammatory reaction over years may eventually lead to Alzheimer’s disease.

Dr Sinnott concluded, “Herpes viruses may ultimately be revealed to be one of the leading killers of our species.” Herpes viruses are opportunistic – they strike when your defenses are down. Stress, injury, surgery, infection and illness all increase your susceptibility.
Once again it is quite clear when your IMMUNE SYSTEM is DOWN you can become vulnerable to contracting Viruses, or if you already have them in your system they could be activated in a weak part of your body. This is believed to cause the onset of cancer and other inflammatory conditions. Shingles are a good example. When you are prone to cold sores or Herpes detoxify your body regularly plus keep your Immune System at its peak.

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The $30 million industry disclosed last week that it has been experiencing big losses of juvenile oysters over November and early December. Half the aquaculture industry’s farmed oysters due for harvest next year have died on marine farms from Parengarenga Harbour in Northland to Ohiwa in the eastern Bay of Plenty.

On some farms, up to 80 percent of juvenile oysters had died, compared with 5 percent to 10 percent in a normal year.

Marine pathologists at the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry have used molecular tests and DNA sequencing to show the presence of ostreid herpesvirus-1 (OsHV-1) in samples from affected oyster farms, and MAF response manager Richard Norman said it was possible the die-off had been due to a range of factors, triggered by unusually warm water temperatures.

Oyster herpes virus is specific to shellfish and is not unrelated to the herpes viruses that affect humans and other animals.

A strain of the virus killed between 20 to 100 percent of breeding Pacific oysters in some French beds in 2008, 2009, and 2010.

That virus has since has spread into British waters.

Ostreid herpes viruses are known to affect not only oysters but also clams, scallops, and other molluscs, according to French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea pathology lab director Tristan Renault, who has suggested in Europe that global warming “could be an explanation of the appearance of this particular type of the virus”.

Animal health experts at the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) are assessing the extent to which a combination of “infectious agents” such as OsHV-1 and environmental factors are causing the die-off of Pacific oysters there, whether other shellfish species are involved and the risk of infection posed by the transfer of adult Pacific oysters from infected farms.

But MAF said today that OsHV-1 was not listed as a mollusc disease by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), “meaning it is not an issue of concern in oyster trade”.
“The oyster industry is clearly facing significant production issues with a predicted shortfall for next year of approximately half of next year’s harvest,” said Dr Norman. “MAF will continue to work closely with the industry to identify other causes of the event and ways future production can be managed.”

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While the finding doesn’t rule out a link between these antivirals and specific types of birth defects, it does show that the drugs aren’t causing a lot of birth defects, said Dr. James Mills.

Some medications, including some seizure and acne drugs, have been linked to higher rates of birth defects – a famous side effect of the drug thalidomide that was used in the 1960s to combat morning sickness in pregnant women. But not much was known about the effects of antiviral drugs used to treat herpes.

“As with many drugs used during pregnancy there wasn’t much evidence to show they were safe,” Mills, an epidemiologist at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, told Reuters Health. Even though there wasn’t a major concern about these drugs, medication use during pregnancy is “always an issue,” he said. Mills is co-author of an editorial accompanying the Danish study, which is published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Herpes viruses hide out in nerve cells in the body where they periodically cause outbreaks of painful conditions, such as cold sores, genital herpes and, later in life, skin blisters called shingles. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 1 in 6 Americans between 14 and 49 years old is infected with genital herpes, and one study showed that 1 in 4 people will get shingles at some point.

These infections are typically treated with antiviral drugs such as acyclovir (Zovirax). While herpes can’t be cured by medication, antivirals can help control the symptoms and outbreaks and relieve pain.

Dr. Bjorn Pasternak and Dr. Anders Hviid, epidemiologists at the Statens Serum Institut in Copenhagen, Denmark, looked at the records of all babies born in Denmark between 1996 and 2008 – almost 840,000 births. They also examined data from nationwide registries that keep track of all diagnoses of major birth defects and all prescriptions filled at pharmacies in Denmark.

Comparing these registries, the investigators were able to figure out when in the course of their pregnancies women had filled prescriptions for (and presumably taken) herpes medication, and which women gave birth to babies with birth defects.

Pasternak and Hviid focused on medication that pregnant women took during their first trimester, the window of time when organs are developing and most susceptible to drug effects.

During the 12-year study, about 1,800 babies were born to mothers who filled prescriptions for acyclovir, valacyclovir (Valtrex), and famciclovir (Famvir) during their first trimester. Forty of those babies had birth defects – 2.2 percent of them. In comparison, close to 20,000 of the 836,000 babies whose mothers didn’t take those drugs during the first trimester had birth defects, or 2.4 percent.

Women who filled prescriptions for antivirals during their second and third trimesters also weren’t any more likely to give birth to a baby with birth defects than women who didn’t fill these prescriptions.

Despite the size of the study, the authors did not have enough data to determine whether there might be a link between any of these drugs and specific birth defects.

Pasternak said more research is needed to rule out a link between herpes medications and specific birth defects, and to answer the question of whether these drugs affect pregnancy complications such as spontaneous abortion.

But, he told Reuters Health, “from a public health perspective it is important to know that women who take antivirals early in pregnancy are not placing themselves at risk of having a child with a birth defect” on the whole.

While the study can’t rule out whether an individual taking a herpes antiviral drug might put her baby at risk for certain kinds of defects, “this is the best we can do at the moment,” Pasternak said.

The study was funded by the Danish Medical Research Council and the Lundbeck Foundation, which invests in pharmaceutical companies.

SOURCE: http://link.reuters.com/xyg86n JAMA/Journal of the American Medical Association, August 25, 2010.

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The incurable, deadly virus is, however, alarming fishing communities in Europe, where oyster herpes seems to be spreading—and could go on spreading as seas continue to warm, experts say.

In July lab testing of farmed oysters detected the first known United Kingdom cases of herpes in the shellfish. The virus has already killed between 20 to 100 percent of breeding Pacific oysters in some French beds in 2008, 2009, and 2010, according to the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer).

The reason for oyster herpes’s emergence in Pacific oysters off England remains a mystery, though global warming may have played a part, experts speculate.

A new strain named Ostreid herpesvirus 1 (OsHV-1) ?var (mew-var), the virus remains dormant until water temperatures exceed 16 C [61 degrees F], which U.K. waters reach in the height of summer, according to Kevin Denham of the British government’s Fish Health Inspectorate.

With that in mind, Tristan Renault, director of Ifremer’s genetic and pathology lab, said that global warming “could be an explanation of the appearance of this particular type of the virus.”

Though all herpes strains are DNA-based viruses, herpes, which infects everything from cows to clams to monkeys, comes in a wide variety of species, each with their own unique set of symptoms. Among humans, perhaps the best known forms are the Herpes simplex viruses, which are spread through close contact and can manifest themselves as oral and genital blisters.

Ostreid herpes viruses are known to affect not only oysters but also clams, scallops, and other mollusks, according to Renault.

The New Oyster Herpes

Herpes-infected shellfish aren’t new to science, but in 2008—the first year a huge increase in mortality rates was detected in France—Ifremer detected a new variation of the virus.

Like the other strains of herpes that affect mollusks, OsHV-1 ?var attacks young oysters during breeding season, when the mollusks’ bodies are so focused on producing sperm and eggs that the oysters have no energy to maintain an immune system, Renault said.

But OsHV-1 ?var is “more virulent than strains we identified before,” Renault said, adding that the virus is so efficient at killing its hosts that it can wipe out 80 percent of the oysters in a bed within a week.

That death rate is the only outward sign something’s wrong, he added, because a oyster herpes have no visible symptoms, and diagnosis is possible only through lab testing.

Oyster Herpes Appears in Britain

Though oyster herpes can’t be transmitted to humans, it does threaten the fishing industry, since dead oysters are unsafe for eating—and that’s exactly what worries oyster harvesters such as Seasalter Shellfish.

Based in the southeastern English city of Whitstable, where oysters have been harvested for centuries, Seasalter this summer became the first company to discover the herpes-ravaged oysters in the U.K.

The finding prompted an investigation by the Fish Health Inspectorate, which detected the virus and learned that Seasalter had employed equipment previously used in France to refurbish oyster beds.

“We were told it had been out of the water for a number of years,” Denham said. “Nevertheless there’s still a possibility” that the virus could have traveled from infected French beds via the gear. Possible culprits also include other reused equipment or water transferred from an infected area.

Could Oyster Herpes Spread?

To keep the U.K. oyster-herpes outbreak from spreading, the British government has banned the shipping of oysters out of affected areas, most of which, like Whitstable, are around the mouth of the River Thames in southeastern England.

No matter what measures are taken, Denham said, oyster herpes is going to be tough to kick. Even if all the infected Pacific oysters are removed from oyster farms, wild Pacific oysters will still be present in surrounding waters, perhaps acting as “a reservoir for infection.”

It’s unlikely, though, that OsHV-1 ?var would end up in U.S. oyster beds, Renault said, because the United States doesn’t typically import oysters from Europe.

But a less virulent, herpes-like virus has been detected in farmed oysters off California. If sea temperatures continue to rise, he said, perhaps ?var or something like it could emerge in U.S. waters too.

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The findings are published in the July 21 online edition of BMJ. Health officials in the United States have been urging vaccination of young women and girls.

The researchers estimate that the virus causes an estimated 500,000 cases of cervical cancer in women each year around the world. The virus can also cause warts in the genital area and low-grade cervical growths. Those two conditions are thought to strike 30 million people annually.

In the just-released randomized control trial, researchers studied 17,622 women in 24 countries and territories who had been assigned to take the vaccine or a placebo over a six-month period. The women were aged 16 to 26.

Joakim Dillner, of the department of medical microbiology, Lund University, Malmo University in Sweden, and colleagues found that the vaccine provided significant protection against the warts and tumors in susceptible women. For example, 168 of 7,632 women who took the placebo developed cervical growths attributed to HPV strains, while just seven of the 7,629 who took the vaccine did, they noted.

In the big picture, the study authors wrote, the vaccine “provided strong and sustained protection” for four years against various types of warts and low-grade female genital growths.

The study was funded by Merck Research Laboratories, a division of Merck & Company, maker of the HPV vaccine Gardasil.

Dr. Clyde Crumpacker, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, said in an interview that the study is useful because it shows the vaccine can do more than prevent the virus from spreading.

“The vaccine has not yet been licensed for boys, but this study provides a strong case that boys should be vaccinated to prevent acquisition of HPV and prevent genital warts,” said Crumpacker.

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The findings, from two studies in Uganda, suggest there may be additional benefits to offering circumcision to men in countries with high rates of heterosexual HIV transmission.

What the findings could mean for other countries, including the U.S., is less clear, researchers say.

In 2005 and 2006, three clinical trials in Uganda, South Africa and Kenya showed that circumcision can cut a man’s risk of HIV infection through heterosexual sex by up to 60 percent. Subsequent studies of those men also found a lower prevalence of HPV among those who were circumcised and HIV-negative.

But it hadn’t been clear whether that lower prevalence was specifically due to a lower risk of HPV infection. Nor has it been known whether circumcision affects HPV risk in HIV-positive men, according to Dr. Ronald H. Gray, a professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health in Baltimore and the senior researcher on the Ugandan studies.

HPV is a highly common virus with more than 100 strains, some of which cause genital warts. While the immune system clears the infection in most people, persistent infection with certain HPV strains can lead to cancer. HPV is the primary cause of cervical cancer in women, and it can also lead to penile and anal cancers.

Gray noted that HPV-related cancers are a serious public health problem in sub-Saharan Africa — in contrast to developed countries, where, for example, women have access to regular Pap tests to detect cervical cancer early and, in recent years, HPV vaccination.

Moreover, people with HIV infection often have HPV infections as well, and are especially susceptible to developing HPV-related cancers, Gray said.

The current studies, published in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, found that circumcision appeared to lower the rate of infection with cancer-related HPVs in both HIV-negative and HIV-positive men — by 33 percent and 23 percent, respectively, compared with uncircumcised men.

The studies included 210 HIV-positive and 840 HIV-negative men between the ages of 15 and 49 who were randomly assigned to undergo immediate or delayed circumcision. At the outset, 39 percent of HIV-negative and roughly three-quarters of HIV-positive men carried at least one cancer-related strain of HPV.

Circumcision appeared to lower the men’s rates of new high-risk HPV infections, and, in HIV-negative men, it increased the rate at which their immune systems cleared established infections. Still, after two years, many circumcised men were still found to carry a cancer-related HPV: more than 20 percent of HIV-negative men and 55 percent of HIV-positive men.

However, Gray said, given the severity of the problem of HPV and HPV-related cancers in sub-Saharan Africa, “anything we can do to lower the risk is a good thing. It’s possible that circumcision would have benefits for preventing cancers in both men and women.”

The researchers are currently looking at whether circumcision has helped to lower HPV infection in the study participants’ female partners. Gray said that the preliminary results suggest benefits.

The World Health Organization (WHO) currently recommends medically supervised circumcision as one way to lower men’s risk of HIV in countries where heterosexual transmission is common — but in junction with other measures, including HIV education and access to condoms. The WHO also states that men in these countries who are already HIV-positive “should not be denied” circumcision unless there is a medical reason, Gray said.

But the public-health value of circumcision in other countries, including the U.S., is under debate. In the U.S., most HIV infections are related to homosexual sex or IV drug use, and studies have found no good evidence that circumcision lowers HIV transmission among men who have sex with men.

With HPV, in contrast, it’s estimated that most sexually active people in the U.S. will carry some strain of the virus at some point in their lives. However, any risk reduction from circumcision might have little public-health impact in the U.S. — where Pap screening for cervical cancer is routine, penile and anal cancers in men are uncommon, and HPV vaccination is available for girls and women.

The American Academy of Pediatrics does not recommend routine circumcision for newborns, citing insufficient evidence of overall health benefits. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, meanwhile, is currently developing recommendations on adult and infant circumcision for lowering HIV risk.

“My personal feeling,” Gray said, “is that we shouldn’t make any specific recommendations (on newborn circumcision). But we should inform parents of the potential benefits of circumcision.”

But even in countries where circumcision is recommended for HIV prevention, the procedure may have only “marginal” effects on the population prevalence of HPV, according to an editorial published with the studies.

The decrease in HPV prevalence related to circumcision was “significant but modest,” write Drs. Raphael V. Viscidi and Keerti V. Shah, also with Johns Hopkins.

In developed countries where the expensive HPV vaccines are available, the shots are the “preferred public health strategy” for preventing HPV-related diseases, according to the editorialists.

Viscidi has served as a paid consultant to GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Cervarix, one of the two HPV vaccines on the market. Shah has been a consultant to both GlaxoSmithKline and Merck, maker of the other HPV vaccine, Gardasil.

Circumcision is thought to lower the heterosexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases through several mechanisms. One is by reducing the amount of mucosal tissue exposed during sex, which limits the viruses’ access to the body cells they target. Another theory is that the thickened skin that forms around the circumcision scar helps block the viruses’ entry.

SOURCE: Journal of Infectious Diseases

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Black women had the highest rate of infection at 48 percent and women were nearly twice likely as men to be infected, according to an analysis by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About 21 percent of women were infected with genital herpes, compared to only 11.5 percent of men, while 39 percent of blacks were infected compared to about 12 percent for whites, the CDC said.

There is no cure for genital herpes, or herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2), which can cause recurrent and painful genital sores and also increases the likelihood of acquiring and transmitting the AIDS virus. It is related to herpes simplex virus 1, or oral herpes, which causes cold sores.

Several drugs are available to treat herpes symptoms and outbreaks, including acyclovir, which is available generically or under the Zovirax brand name, and valacyclovir, known generically as Valtrex — both made by GlaxoSmithKline PLC. Ganciclovir, sold as Zirgan, is made by privately-held Sirion Therapeutics, Inc.

The CDC estimates that more than 80 percent of people with genital herpes do not know they are infected.

“The message is herpes is quite common. The symptoms can be often very innocuous,” Dr. John Douglas of the CDC said in a teleconference.

“Because herpes is so prevalent it becomes … a really important reason to use condoms on a consistent and correct basis with all of your partners,” Douglas said.

Douglas said the increased rate of infection in blacks women is not due to increased risk behavior.

“As with other STDs, biological factors may make women more susceptible to HSV-2 infection.

“Additionally, racial disparities in HSV-2 infection are likely perpetuated because of the higher prevalence of infection within African-American communities, placing African-Americans at greater risk of being exposed to herpes with any given sexual encounter,” the CDC said in a statement.

The CDC estimates that there are 19 million new sexually transmitted disease infections every year in the United States, costing the health care system about $16 billion annually.

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The findings, presented at the 2010 National STD Prevention Conference, indicate that herpes remains one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in the United States.

The new estimate, for 2005-2008, comes from CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), a nationally representative survey of the U.S. household population that assesses a broad range of health issues.

The findings suggest relatively stable HSV-2 prevalence since CDC’s last national estimate (17 percent for 1999-2004), because the slight decline in prevalence between the two time periods is not statistically significant.

The study finds that women and blacks were most likely to be infected. HSV-2 prevalence was nearly twice as high among women (20.9 percent) than men (11.5 percent), and was more than three times higher among blacks (39.2 percent) than whites (12.3 percent). The most affected group was black women, with a prevalence rate of 48 percent.

As with other STDs, biological factors may make women more susceptible to HSV-2 infection. Additionally, racial disparities in HSV-2 infection are likely perpetuated because of the higher prevalence of infection within African-American communities, placing African-Americans at greater risk of being exposed to herpes with any given sexual encounter.

“This study serves as a stark reminder that herpes remains a common and serious health threat in the United States. Everyone should be aware of the symptoms, risk factors, and steps that can be taken to prevent the spread of this lifelong and incurable infection,” said Kevin Fenton, M.D., director of CDC’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention. “We are particularly concerned about persistent high rates of herpes among African-Americans, which is likely contributing to disproportionate rates of HIV in the black community.”

Research shows that people with herpes are two to three times more likely to acquire HIV, and that herpes can also make HIV-infected individuals more likely to transmit HIV to others. CDC estimates that over 80 percent of those with HSV-2 are unaware of their infection. Symptoms may be absent, mild, or mistaken for another condition. And people with HSV-2 can transmit the virus even when they have no visible sores or other symptoms.

“Many individuals are transmitting herpes to others without even knowing it,” said John M. Douglas, Jr., M.D., director of CDC’s Division of STD Prevention. “We can’t afford to be complacent about this disease. It is important that persons with symptoms suggestive of herpes – especially recurrent sores in the genital area – seek clinical care to determine if these symptoms may be due to herpes and might benefit from treatment.”

Combination of Prevention Approaches Needed to Reduce National Herpes Rates

Although HSV-2 infection is not curable, there are effective medications available to treat symptoms and prevent outbreaks. Those with known herpes infection should avoid sex when herpes symptoms or sores are present and understand that HSV-2 can still be transmitted when sores are not present. Effective strategies to reduce the risk of HSV-2 infection include abstaining from sexual contact, using condoms consistently and correctly, and limiting the number of sex partners.

CDC does not recommend HSV-2 screening for the general population. However, such testing may be useful for individuals who are unsure of their status and at high risk for the disease, including those with multiple sex partners, those who are HIV-positive, and gay and bisexual men.

Source:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

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“While the HIV-disease ameliorating effect we have observed is modest, it could add one more tool to help people with HIV infection stay healthy for longer,” study co-author Dr. Jairam Lingappa, of the University of Washington, said in a news release from The Lancet.

The study, published online in the journal, analyzed what happened to almost 3,400 people in Africa who were infected with both diseases.

Half were assigned to take 400 milligrams of acyclovir twice a day, and the others took a placebo. Researchers tracked their progress for up to 24 months.

The risk of HIV progression was reduced by 16 percent in those who took acyclovir, the study found.

However, other research has suggested that acyclovir does not prevent transmission of HIV to heterosexual partners by people who take the drug, the scientists said.

The researchers said that other HIV drugs would have a greater impact on the progression of HIV in those who were infected. But , acyclovir could be an option for people who had not progressed far enough to need antiretroviral therapy, they said.

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As a matter of fact, even when it’s not causing an outbreak, the virus is shedding tiny bits of itself in the genital tract.

While the study did not specifically address whether or not the very small amounts of virus being continually shed are enough to infect someone else, the findings have the potential to change the way in which scientists view the life cycle of the disease.

The herpes virus is believed to hide out in the neurons around the spine during latent periods, then periodically travel down neurons that end in the genital tract, where it infects the skin cells, causing a lesion.

The accepted view is that the virus was largely inactive during latent periods, said study author Dr. Joshua Schiffer, a senior fellow at the University of Washington in Seattle.

“We’ve known for many years that herpes maintains a latent state in the nerves around the spinal cord. In effect, it hibernates there,” Schiffer said. “The older idea was that it didn’t do much while it was there … But what our model suggests is the virus is continually being released from the neurons.”

The study appears in the Nov. 18 issue of Science Translational Medicine.

The study looked at herpes simplex 2 virus, not herpes simplex 1 virus, which causes cold sores or fever blisters, though it can also cause genital lesions. Schiffer said he suspected the findings would hold true for herpes simplex 1 as well, though previous studies suggest herpes simplex 1 may shed less often.

Schiffer and his colleagues used data from two previous studies. In the first, participants swabbed their genitals every day during an outbreak and until their lesions went away. In the second, patients swabbed their genitals four times a day for 60 days, even when they were asymptomatic.

The data was then put into a mathematical model to determine the probable rate of shedding. According to the study, 85 percent of shedding episodes were asymptomatic, or did not cause a lesion. About 60 percent lasted less than 12 hours.

About 45 million Americans, or one in five over the age of 12, are infected with the genital herpes virus in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But many of them aren’t aware they are infected because they’ve never had, or have never been aware of, their lesions. “Within their skin there is this constant battle going on within the virus and the immune system,” Schiffer explained.

Typically, patients are counseled to avoid having sex during an outbreak and to use a condom to prevent transmission when they are not having symptoms.

Antiviral drugs available, including acyclovir, valacyclovir and famciclovir, can control many, but not all, outbreaks, Schiffer said.

Nancy Sawtell, a researcher in the division of infectious diseases at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, said the study opens up new avenues for research. But it’s too soon to suggest that low levels of viral DNA necessarily mean a person can still infect another.

She noted that the researchers tested for viral DNA, which is only a portion of the virus and doesn’t in and of itself mean a person is infectious. “The presence of viral DNA does mean you are infected, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you have an infectious particle there,” Sawtell said.

Secondly, because the neurons themselves were not examined, it’s possible the viral DNA that’s present could have originated from somewhere else in the body. Previous animal studies have shown herpes does indeed go into an inactive state.

“It would be really nice to be able to look at the neurons in this human model to determine that the virus is coming from the spine, and wasn’t just present in the genitalia and missed by an earlier swab,” Sawtell said.

Couples trying to avoid infecting one partner should continue to take the same precautions they did prior to the study, including using condoms even when asymptomatic.

“I wouldn’t panic over it,” Sawtell said. “We have a lot to learn about how infectious these low levels of viral DNA actually are.”

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