But beyond the numbers are tales of pain and hardship.
Betsy O'Rourke, a 38-year-old Pennsylvania mother of two, was 19 and in nursing school when she slept with a medical student who later confessed he had a venereal disease. She soon developed multiple blisters that became so painful it hurt even to walk or urinate. Mortified at the prospect of rejection, she kept her condition a secret from subsequent boyfriends and then was weighed down by silent guilt when each in turn was diagnosed with the disease.
"I thought herpes happened to other people," said O'Rourke. "I was absolutely miserable. I was scared to death. I didn't know if I'd be able to have a normal life or if anyone would ever want me, and I was in a lot of pain. As it turned out, I went on to live a good life, but at the time, I didn't know if I would."
Internet help is out there
To counter the fear and isolation that sometimes follow diagnosis, many turn to the Internet: medical sites, support groups (Yahoo's is called Picking up the Pieces) and herpes dating services (such as Meet People With Herpes or mpwh.com). There are pages with blister-filled photos and pages with intimate advice ("Tell them before you have sex with them, but wait until you're sure you like them enough to want to have sex with them," starts one.)
The oldest and biggest site, the Original Herpes Homepage (at racoon.com/herpes), gets more than 1 million hits a month, many from people looking to overcome the sense that they're damaged goods.
"He said he thought he could deal with me having H, but then couldn't," wrote one woman who had been recently diagnosed. "So now I'm back to feeling worthless and disgusting and lonely."
Another lamented: "I feel like I have a handicap in the dating game — like I'm stuck with a 'slightly imperfect' sticker, and the intelligent, funny, beautiful men that I'm attracted to are shopping for perfect."
One man wrote last week: "A couple of months ago, before I found out about my own situation, I know how I would have reacted had a girl I was seeing told me she had this virus — I would have held her hand and told her that it didn't matter, and a few weeks later would have used the back door."
Management of the disease these days is better than it once was.
In the past several years, antiviral drugs have become available, reducing the number of outbreaks and shortening their duration. The downside is that to hasten healing, some drugs need to be taken five times a day.
To suppress the virus long-term, cutting the number of outbreaks by 75 percent, people typically remain on the drugs indefinitely.
But the cost for people without health insurance can be prohibitive: one of the most effective herpes drugs costs $150 for a one-month supply.
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