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Two-thirds of the world's population under 50 have the highly infectious herpes virus that causes cold sores around the mouth, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, in its first estimate of global prevalence of the disease.
More than 3.7 billion people under the age of 50 suffer from the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1), usually after catching it in childhood, according to a the WHO study.
That is in addition to 417 million people in the 17-49 age range who have the other form of the disease, HSV-2, which causes genital herpes.
According to TechInsider :
One of the biggest issues is that public-health efforts have focused primarily on preventing HSV-2 infections, the researchers write, not HSV-1 infections. But the latter can actually pose more serious risks than just cold sores.
What's more, according to the new report, is that sexually transmitted HSV-1 is on the rise, especially in the Americas, Europe, and the Western Pacific.
Aside from those cold sores, HSV-1 is the most common cause of sporadic encephalitis (inflammation of the brain). And while this brain infection is very rare, it kills more than 50% of those infected if left untreated, according to the National Institutes of Health.
The original WHO study was published on October 28, in the journal Plos One.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Monday November 02 2015, @10:56PM
I don't think people normally choose to do it the old fashioned way now that there's a choice. My parents purposefully exposed me to the Chicken Pox via a pox party for the simple reason that it was the lesser of two evils. Chicken pox is a serious health problem, but when you're a child it's much less likely to be fatal than as an adult. Roughly 1% of chicken pox cases are in adults, but adults represent about half of the fatalities.
These days it's not as much of an issue, if you're in the developed world you can probably get the vaccination paid for by somebody else if you can't afford it. Otherwise, you're stuck doing it the old fashioned way.
But, even in the best of cases, you're still looking at a week out of school and some very uncomfortable scratching everywhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 03 2015, @07:12AM
Vaccines are not something that is popular these days. There are still plenty of people that will have pox parties because they are afraid of autism or something.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday November 04 2015, @03:56AM
Sort of. You are right that people are still doing it and that it's common enough to cause problems, but the vast majority of parents do the right thing. Unfortunately, it takes more than the vast majority, it takes damn near all of them to get herd immunity.