If a person has HSV, their body fluids, including their saliva, will contain the virus. If you experience symptoms of genital herpes, visit a doctor. The signs and symptoms of a herpes breakout include: Genital herpes can be asymptomatic, which means you won’t notice any symptoms.
Patients are also more contagious just before a breakout and should avoid sexual contact. Healed ulcers are not considered infectious. However, it is more contagious during an active breakout. Herpes is contagious even if there are no sores present. In many cases, infected people will not experience any symptoms and remain unaware that they are carriers of the herpes virus. According to estimates by the World Health Organization, 3.7 billion people (or 67% of the population) under the age of 50 have HSV 1 and 417 million people (or 11% of the population) have HSV 2.
Once infected, people are carriers of HSV for life. There are two types of herpes simplex virus - HSV 1 which is mostly transmitted via oral contact and causes cold sores and HSV 2 which causes genital herpes and is transmitted sexually. Valacyclovir from $16.00 View all treatments What causes herpes?