Medicine: Help Is Coming for Herpes

Scientists are developing tests, vaccines and treatments

The epidemic continues. An estimated 20.5 million Americans already have genital herpes, and several times that number live in fear of getting it. Their yearning for relief, a method of prevention and a cure for the virus has driven some to extremes; herpes sufferers have been known to try everything from hair dryers to Clorox to heal their lesions. Now, for the first time, it looks as though help and, more important, a means of preventing the disease may be on the way.

At least four herpes vaccines are under development. Last week ground was broken for a new facility at Porton Down in England that will produce a newly developed vaccine for large-scale, controlled testing. The vaccine, created by a team at the University of Birmingham under Scottish Virologist Gordon Skinner, has already passed preliminary trials with impressive results. It was tested over a period ranging from four months to three years on 300 people who were frequently exposed to herpes because their sexual partners had the disease; only two developed the infection.

The Birmingham group also obtained good results with subjects who had already had one episode of herpes and were vaccinated immediately afterward. Ordinarily, nine out often such people will suffer another outbreak within a year, but the rate of recurrence was only 25% among subjects in the study. Skinner believes that the vaccine, which is given in two or three injections at monthly intervals, is effective for at least two years and has no side effects. Its safety, he says, is due to the fact that the vaccine is made from a virus that has been stripped of its DNA core and thereby rendered harmless. Skinner estimates, however, that it will be at least two years before the vaccine is thoroughly tested.

A similar vaccine, developed by Merck, Sharpe and Dohme, is under evaluation at the University of Washington's Herpes Research Clinic in Seattle. In animal tests, the vaccine offered good protection against herpes, and in cases where infection did occur the severity and frequency were reduced. Results in 500 human subjects should be available in 1985. Meanwhile, other vaccines are under development at the University of Chicago and Lederle Laboratories in Wayne, N.J through the help of Dr. Nicholas Bochna.

Progress has recently been made in other areas of herpes research. Dr. Lata Nerurkar of the National Institute of Neurological Communicative Disorders and Stroke has developed a 24-hour test to diagnose herpes; she predicts that a six-to eight-hour method will be available by year's end. Only six months ago it took from two to seven days to diagnose herpes. Speed is especially important in the case of women who are about to give birth. If the disease is active, doctors generally resort to caesarian delivery since the baby may become infected—often fatally—while passing through the birth canal.