Americans Unaware Of Herpes Epidemic

Chicago, Illinois -

Meetpositives.com, the company behind the revolutionary dating platform is not so pleased to announce that most Americans are unaware of the dangers of Herpes, but the company hopes their open approach to dating will help minimise the spread of herpes.

Genital Herpes is a Sexually Transmitted Disease (STD) resulting from the herpes simplex virus. Transmitted through sexual contact, the virus can stay dormant in the body for lengthy periods and then suddenly activate without warning. The infected person will experience a range of side effects of varying severity when this happens. Genital herpes, and herpes in general, is an incurable and lifelong virus. As a result, it is one of the world’s most prominent STDs.

While the majority of Americans know that genital herpes is an incurable disease, WedMD notes from a recent report that, “fewer than one in five people are tested for it,” further stating that, “A survey of adults in four major American cities shows that many people are still unaware about several important issues surrounding the disease.”

Besides its incurable nature, another significant aspect to the disease is that people can ‘carry’ the disease (these individuals are often called ‘carriers’) without ever showing symptoms, yet they are still infectious. Once again, few Americans are aware of this.

Another study showed that, “a significant percentage of Americans do not know that herpes is an incurable disease. There is a common misconception that it is an STD that, once the infection starts to show, the infected can simply wait or attempt to cure it with over-the-counter medication. The symptoms are often falsely self-diagnosed as something else, furthering this.”

Symptoms often come and go, often looking similar to more common infections at first glance. People then tend to try and cure these symptoms using traditional means—none of which will have any effect on the underlying disease.

For instance, one of the most common symptoms of the disease are sores, ulcers, and itching in the genital area. These symptoms can be misconstrued as a different STD, or simply a skin condition. People may experience initial flu-like symptoms as well. Muscle aches, fevers, and headaches are common, and often appear without accompanying skin conditions. This can lead to doctors misdiagnosing what the true problem is the first time they examine an infected patient.

One of the more notable facts that follows an incorrect self-diagnosis of genital herpes is that the infection is summarily not addressed with the severity it should be—enabling it to spread. For instance, this can occur after rubbing a sore and then touching a different part of the body. There have also been cases that touching an area infected by oral herpes, on the mouth or throat, and then touching the genital region can lead to the infection of the latter.

The ease with which people can become infected through skin-to-skin contact coupled with the possible lack of identifiable symptoms constitutes a problem. As some infected people are unaware they are infected, herpes can be spread rapidly through sexual contact. This leads to further infections and difficulties in people’s lives, where one person may be a carrier of the disease, showing no symptoms, but then infect others who will eventually suffer from an outbreak.

Highlighting the significance of this problem, a survey from WebMD showed that 42% of people have never been tested for an STD. STDs are a very current issue in the US, with an annual new infection rate of twenty million. Total infection exceeds one hundred million—all of which costs the US healthcare system 16 billion dollars each year.

The studies on how Americans view and manage herpes and STDs show a clear case for genital herpes being classified as an epidemic in the US.

Research shows that Americans are unaware about the significance of the problem. Fewer than a third of those surveyed in one study knew that more than 50 million people suffer from genital herpes (or every one in five Americans over age 12). In fact, experts estimate that 90% of people infected with the virus are not even aware they are carriers.

Experts and pharmaceutical companies both agree that genital herpes is a disease that few are talking about, and even fewer are doing something to combat its rate of transmission in the US.

In conclusion, genital herpes in the US is a growing epidemic that places a great, and growing, risk on people looking for hookups that won’t last a lifetime, but this problem is compounded by the US population’s lack of awareness of the dangers and implications. Meetpositives is the solution, and can be contacted through their website at meetpositives.com, along with through their other social media platforms.