Condoms May Reduce Herpes Risk
"If someone with herpes is shedding virus for an area that is not covered by a condom, we speculate the virus will spread whether or not they are using a condom."
The study is published in the July 13 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.
For the study, Martin's team looked at data from six HSV-2 studies that dealt with the effectiveness of condoms in preventing herpes. The studies included 5,384 men and women who did not have herpes when the studies began.
During the follow-up period, which ranged from 12 to 19 months, 415 people had contracted the herpes virus. But people who used condoms 100 percent of the time reduced the risk of catching the virus by 30 percent, the researchers found.
In addition, the risk of getting herpes was reduced 7 percent "every additional 25 percent of the time that condoms were used during anal or vaginal sex," the researchers wrote.
The risk of getting herpes increased with the frequency of unprotected sex, and there was no significant difference between men and women in the effectiveness of condoms in preventing herpes transmission, they add.
Martin said using a condom not only reduces the odds of getting herpes, but of other STDs as well.
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yes, it can reduce the risk of getting Herpes and other STDs. But not 100%. 80% people I met on a Herpes community " HerpesLoving co m" said they use condom, but the result is positive also