Herpes Statistics

About 80 percent of American adults have oral herpes (cold sores).

An estimated 25 percent of adults in the United States have genital herpes. Most don’t know it because their symptoms are too mild to notice.

Herpes viruses are extremely common and around 100 have been identified in a variety of animal species. All of the herpes viruses are members of one family, the Herpes viridian, and have certain characteristics in common, such as their ability to establish latency during primary infection. This means that following initial infection the virus remains dormant, to be reactivated by certain triggers such as an individual’s immune status, stress or sunlight.

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