Herpes Simplex Type One as the Predominant Cause of Genital Herpes in College Students.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Genital herpes etiology has been shifting to include a greater proportion of herpes simplex type one (HSV-1) infection in the last few decades. A prior study published in 2003 found that 48.9% of infections in a college health population were HSV-1. METHODS: We evaluated the number of positive herpes simplex virus PCR tests obtained from anogenital sites from undergraduate and graduate students from 2013 - 2022 in a college health clinic setting and analyzed the number caused by HSV-1 and herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) and compared by sex. This was then compared to the prior study from 1993-2001. RESULTS: We received 691 (of 2685 samples) positive PCR results for HSV of both types in the period analyzed. Overall, 600 (86.8%) of these were HSV-1 and 520 (75.2%) were in female patients. The prior study in 1993-2001 found that 48.9% (244/675) of all positive tests were HSV-1; we observed an increase in the percentage of positive HSV-1 over all positive tests of 1.8 (chi square 16.548; p value <0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Our study shows that 86.8% of the positive genital HSV tests from 2013-2022 were HSV-1. This shows that most positive HSV tests in this setting are now HSV-1, a substantial increase from the previous study in our clinic.