Natural Herpes Treatment

The Pepsi company could help a  professor find a  herpes cure.

Professor David C. Bloom in the department of molecular genetics and microbiology, is hoping to win  a $50,000 grant to fund a treatment for herpes  in the Pepsi Refresh Project .

Bloom and his  team invented a new ribozyme therapy that could be used to treat herpes infections resistant to conventional drug treatments. Ribozyme, a molecule in genetic material, is intended to make the virus unable to infect and be transmitted to others.

About a million new cases of herpes occur annually. If Bloom succeeds, he would be able to stop the recurrence of herpes and fund human clinical trials for the herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1).

“Our project is at a critical phase right now,” Bloom said. “We have exciting data that shows our therapy can block the HSV infection in vivo, but we need additional data on the ability of this treatment to block recurrent disease.”

Starpharma is in beginning to consider clinical trials of its VivaGel product in women at risk of contracting genital herpes, the  Chief Executive Officer Jackie Fairley said in an interview in Singapore. The Melbourne-based company licensed its VivaGel- coated condoms in 2008 to SSL International Plc, maker of the world’s best-selling Durex brand.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show that no cure exists for genital herpes, a condition that infects about one in six Americans and produces painful sores and increases HIV transmission. Other gels are being developed to prevent HIV infections, VivaGel is the only microbicide designed to stop herpes from spreading, Fairley said.

Today, if you have herpes, a natural product called Dynamiclear is very effective in controlling herpes outbreaks because it kills herpes viral particles when applied to  open herpes lesions. Fewer herpes particles remain and this means fewer and weaker outbreaks.