Australian Herpes Management Forum

Research Update: Transmission of Herpes Simplex Virus Types 1 and 2 in a Prospective Cohort of HIV-Negative Gay Men

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August 2006

What's known?

HSV-1 has become an increasingly common cause of clinical anogenital herpes in developed countries, including Australia.

It has been postulated that lower rates of HSV-1 acquisition during childhood and increasing rates of orogenital sex practices may explain this finding.

Epidemiological studies of HSV-2 have shown this virus to be more common in homosexually active men, and they have reported an independent association with HIV acquisition in this population.

What’s New?

This study examined the seroepidemiological profile of and risk factors for both HSV-1 and HSV-2 infections in a longitudinal study of gay men in Sydney, Australia.

Study participants were men in the Health in Men (HIM) cohort study who were recruited from June 2001 through December 2004.

Sexual behaviours were examined as risk factors for prevalent and incident HSV-1 and HSV-2 infections in a community-based cohort of 1427 HIV-negative gay men in Australia.

All the eligible study participants underwent annual face to face interview and telephonic interviews every six months with annual collection of blood samples.

The prevalence of HSV-1 and HSV-2 at baseline was 75% and 23%, respectively.

The rate of prevalent infection with HSV-1, as well as the rate of prevalent infection with HSV-2, was much lower in individuals < 25 years of age, and each type of infection was associated with a higher number of both male and female sex partners.

Among participants who were susceptible to infection, the incidence rates for HSV-1 and HSV-2 infection were 5.58 and 1.45 cases per 100 person-years, respectively.

Both HSV-1 and HSV-2 were commonly sexually transmitted, and there were more HSV-1 than HSV-2 seroconversions.

Authors stated that public-health strategies targeted against anogenital herpes increasingly need to take into account the importance of HSV-1 infection.

Reference

Fengyi Jin, Garrett P. Prestage, Limin Mao, Susan C. Kippax, Catherine M. Pell, Basil Donovan, David J. Templeton, Janette Taylor, Adrian Mindel, John M. Kaldor, and Andrew E. Grulich. Transmission of Herpes Simplex Virus Types 1 and 2 in a Prospective Cohort of HIV-Negative Gay Men: The Health in Men Study. The Journal of Infectious Diseases 2006 (1 September); 194:561–70. Electronically published 28 July 2006.

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