A new drug, pritelivir, may soon hit the market that compensates for the shortcomings of current herpes medications.
In a recent study, pritelivir reduced the replication of the herpes virus in infected test subjects and decreased the duration of genital lesions. In subjects who took a pritelivir pill each day for a month, the virus was only active for 2.1 percent of the time, compared with 16.6 percent for those who took a placebo. Test subjects taking the drug also experienced genital lesions on just 1.2 percent of days compared with 9 percent for those on a placebo.
[jump]Researchers believe pritelivir could be more effective than current drugs at eliminating symptoms and reducing the risk of spreading herpes, as it is the first drug in three decades to be developed that has a different mechanism for fighting the virus. More research is needed before pritelivir is released to the public.
Read more about pritelivir at LiveScience.com