Behavior: Battling an Elusive Invader

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A similar claim is made on behalf of ribavirin, a drug already marketed in 30 foreign countries by Viratek, a small West Coast firm. Ribavirin is said to interfere with the virus' reproduction by blocking protein synthesis in affected cells. Another drug sold abroad but not in the U.S. is Newport Pharmaceuticals' isoprinosine. According to Newport President Alvin Glasky, the drug "speeds up the body's natural curing process" by boosting the immune system. But so far, experts at NIH reject it as being of no proven benefit. Last week scientists at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio announced that a new experimental drug for herpes, BIOLF-62, looked promising and might be tested later this year on humans.

A different sort of treatment is being tried by Los Angeles Gynecologist Robert Scott. He has used a carbon dioxide laser to vaporize herpes lesions in 100 patients and reports a 70% success rate in preventing or delaying recurrences.

The most effective weapon against herpes would be an agent that activated the immune system before an attack. Once the virus has tunneled into the ganglia, it may be too late for a cure. "You would need a pretty remarkable drug to attack the virus genes without damaging the host cells," explains Notkins. Bernard Roizman at the University of Chicago is one of many researchers engaged in the international search for a herpes vaccine. The main challenge, he explains, is to create a substance that poses none of the dangers of the virus itself. "It can't cause cancer, for instance," he says, "and it shouldn't get into the brain." A team at the University of Birmingham in England has already tested a vaccine in 60 people who ran a high risk of contracting the disease (spouses of herpes victims). It was reportedly 100% effective for two years in preventing herpes.

"There is a Nobel Prize for the person who figures out how the viruses select their prey," says Immunologist Paul Wiesner at the Centers for Disease Control, and "a second prize for the person who can figure out the latency of the virus: Just how does it select that perfect hiding place where it can stay for years without being destroyed by the immunological system?" Atlanta Virologist Andre Nahmias, one of the two scientists who discovered Type 2 in the late 1960s, predicts that it will be another seven to ten years before researchers find a way to prevent recurrent infections. In the meantime the search is bringing about a medical revolution on the order of the breakthroughs in antibiotics in the 1940s. "Herpes is causing a boom in virology," says Corey. Ironically, victims of many kinds of infectious disease may ultimately benefit. —By Claudia Wallis. Reported by Christopher Redman/Washington and Dick Thompson/San Francisco