The Reason Behind The Failure Of The Pharmaceutical Industry To Come Up with A Cure For Herpes

We can pinpoint one exact reason why the pharmaceutical industry still has not found a cure for herpes. This has always been the case, although other illnesses - more severe, more seemingly hopeless - now have cures, thanks to the efforts made by these companies in the last two centuries or so. In the past, pneumonia was a decisive killer, claiming a lot of lives in one fell swoop. They thought there is no cure for it. Today, pneumonia patients are simply given antibiotic courses, and it is not considered a big deal.

Other conditions like tuberculosis, typhoid fever and hepatitis are routinely treated with easily available (and quite inexpensive) pharmaceutical products. Given that background, then, it baffles many people why the researchers in the pharmaceutical industry have been unable to develop a cure 'for a simple condition like herpes.' There is one reason for this difficulty of pharmaceutical companies to come up with a cure for herpes, and it has something to do with how well the virus causing herpes can hide. This virus stays in hiding, then surfaces only long enough to bring about the herpes and attacking the patient, then going back to hide yet again.

Even then, some of the viruses remain in hiding even as others go about inducing herpes outbreak episodes in the patient. These viruses could also be fought off by the body's own set of antibodies and even some drugs and medicines. But those that remain in hiding are able to avoid being combated through drugs or by the body's own immunity. So it becomes hard to cure herpes completely, because at any given point in time, some of the viruses that causes it are always in hiding and they can't be reached by drugs or get tackled by the body's own immunity.

But technology advancements, particularly that which involves looking into viruses' DNA genomes, are now more giving us hope that, in the near future, these pharmaceutical companies could come up with a real cure of herpes. There is a gene that has been used by these viruses to hide behind, and if some researchers are to be trusted, they have already identified which gene it is. What is remaining is for a mechanism for disabling that gene to be developed. Once that happens, we will have drugs that are capable of combating the herpes viruses that are visible, whilst also effective 'smoking out' those that are in hiding (by disabling their hiding mechanisms). Now, you can have your oral herpes or even your genital herpes cured for good.

While waiting for that time to come, however, what we can do for the moment is to make use of the currently available treatments. Much as the pharmaceutical industry has been unable to develop a real lasting cure for herpes, it has nonetheless developed treatments through which the disease's symptoms can be managed. Herpes patients who undergo the available herpes treatments will find that they don't have a lot to worry about with their condition. Cures they may not be; however, they can effectively reduce the effects and manage the symptoms being suffered by the patients.