STD: WHAT CAN CAUSED HERPES?
About 70 percent of first infections with genital herpes in the United States are caused by HSV-2, and about 30 percent are caused by HSV-1. Just as with oral herpes, the term genital herpes does not refer to a specific type of herpes—it can be caused by either type 1 or type 2 herpes viruses. And also as with oral herpes, most people who have genital herpes are unaware that they have been infected, because either they have no symptoms or they have symptoms they don’t recognize as being those of herpes. Most people stillthink that herpes always causes painful blisters and ulcers, but the symptoms can be, and often are, more subtle (see the discussion of symptoms in the next section).
Even though genital herpes is very common, a great deal of misinformation is being circulated about it. People often label type 1 herpes as the “good” herpes and type 2 herpes as the “bad” herpes. Actually neither one is good or bad. It’s just that one most commonly causes cold sores of the mouth, and the other most commonly causes genital sores. The artificial good-bad distinction arose because genital herpes is usually caused by sexual contact, and our society has mixed feelings about sex and sexuality.
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