Researchers discover vaccine to treat herpes

Washington: Researchers have discovered a new vaccine which is proving to be effective in combating herpes virus.
In the study, researchers delivered the Penn-developed vaccine to 64 mice and then exposed them to genital herpes. After 28 days, 63 of the mice were found to have sterilising immunity, meaning there was no trace of herpes infection or disease after the exposure.
Similarly, 10 guinea pigs, which have responses to herpes infections that more closely resemble that of humans, were also given the vaccine and exposed to the virus.
No animal developed genital lesions and only two showed any evidence that they became infected, but the infection was not in a form that animals could transmit the virus, reported the study published in the journal, ‘Science Immunology’.
“We’re extremely encouraged by the substantial immunising effect our vaccine had in these animal models,” said the study’s principal investigator Harvey Friedman, MD, a professor of Infectious Diseases.
“Based on these results, it is our hope that this vaccine could be translated into human studies to test both the safety and efficacy of our approach,” added Friedman.