Genital Herpes Quiz: Do You Know the Facts?

About 16% of people aged 14-49 in the U.S. are infected with the herpes simplex virus-2 (HSV-2) that causes genital herpes, but as many as 81% of them had not received the diagnosis.

Genital herpes is very common, infecting at least 45 million people aged 12 and older in the United States.

About one in five women in the US have genital herpes caused by HSV-2, while about one in nine men are infected.  The infection is more easily transmitted from men to women than from women to men.

Genital herpes is caused by a virus, so antibiotics will not help resolve the infection. There is no cure for herpes, but treatment is available to reduce and prevent outbreaks and decrease the risk of transmission to a partner.

As with other sexually transmitted diseases, herpes can be spread by close contact or sexual activity. It is highly unlikely to be spread by a toilet seat or other objects.

Genital herpes can be transmitted even if the infected partner has no symptoms or visible signs or doesn’t know they are infected.

Washing the genital area doesn’t help prevent any sexually transmitted disease (STD), including genital herpes. The best way to prevent any STD is to abstain from sex or engage in sex only with someone you know is not infected. Condoms are not guaranteed to prevent infection, but research has shown that they provide some protection.

The estimated number of pregnant women infected with HSV-2 is 880,000. Most transmission to newborns occurs during vaginal delivery. If a woman had genital herpes before getting pregnant, their baby may be infected but the chance is very low -- less than 1%. However, the risk of infecting the baby is much higher (25% to 50%) when a woman is newly infected late in pregnancy.

If you are pregnant and think you may be infected, tell your doctor right away. Women with genital herpes are examined carefully for any symptoms before giving birth. If sores or signs that an outbreak is coming are present at the time of delivery, the baby may be delivered by cesarean section (C-section).

To find out if you have genital herpes, a doctor can take a sample from a sore and test it in the laboratory. There is also a blood test that looks for antibodies to the virus that your immune system would have made. HSV-2 almost always infects the genitals, so if antibodies to HSV-2 are detected in your blood, you probably have genital herpes.

A blood test that shows antibodies to HSV-1 means you could have genital or oral herpes. That's because oral herpes, typically caused by HSV-1, can be spread to the genitals during oral sex. 

The test will determine if you have genital ulcers present and a high suspicion for HSV but a negative culture, have a history of genital ulcers but were never definitively diagnosed with HSV, or are asymptomatic but pregnant. 

When a person is first infected with the herpes virus, if symptoms occur they usually develop within the first two weeks of virus transmission. Symptoms can include fever and flu-like symptoms, genital itching, burning and discomfort, vaginal discharge, swollen lymph nodes, and a feeling of abdominal pressure.

The classic symptom of genital herpes is small fluid-filled blisters that break, forming painful sores that crust and heal. These may appear four to seven days after the initial virus transmission.

Genital herpes typically causes several outbreaks (four or five) within a year of the first outbreak, with fewer and less severe outbreaks over time.

Some commonly reported triggers for genital herpes outbreaks include stress, illness, surgery, fatigue, sunlight, and menstrual periods.

Once inside the body, HSV-2 travels to the nerve roots near the spinal cord and settles there permanently.

About half the people who have recurrent outbreaks of genital herpes feel an outbreak coming a few hours to a couple of days before it happens. They may feel tingling, burning, itching, numbness, tenderness, or pain where the blisters are going to appear. This is called the prodrome.