STD HERPES: HOW COMMON IS IT?
Approximately 70 percent of adults have oral herpes by the time they reach the age of forty. Oral herpes infections are usually caused by HSV-1. Most people acquire oral herpes through nonsexual transmission before the age of five, such as from an adult with oral HSV-1 who kisses them or from other children. Many people are not even aware that they have oral herpes, because about two-thirds of those with HSV-1 infection around the mouth are completely symptom free. They may remember having had cold sores as children but not have had recurrences as adults. Still others continue to have cold sores into adulthood.
HSV-2 infections can also occur around the mouth, but this is not common, and people who have oral infection with type 1 herpes rarely contract a second infection around the mouth with type 2 herpes. When people do get infected with type 2 herpes in the mouth, they are usually completely symptom free.
Genital herpes is also very common: about forty-five million adults in the United States over the age of fifteen have genital type 2 herpes, and there are about half a million new infections each year in this country. It is estimated that about one in four adults has genital herpes caused by either type 1 or type 2 virus. Genital herpes is almost always sexually transmitted. Those who are newly sexually active— people in their teens and twenties—have a high risk of acquiring genital herpes.
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