HERPES 2

WHAT IS THE LONGEST TIME FRAM FOR HERPES 2 TO SHOW UP IN YOUR SYSTEM OR BLOOD COULD IT  TAKE .YEARS BEFORE IT SHOW. I WAS TOLD IT COULD BE AS MUCH AS 20 YEARS BEFORE IT BECOME ACTIVES.

[Edward W Hook, MD]

There is nothing to suggest that it could take 20 years for a herpes infection to show up in a blood test.  Here is the information from a published study of the time course of development of positive blood tests in persons with herpes:

• Time Course of Seroconversion using HerpeSelect
– 113 patients with recently acquired symptomatic genital herpes (HSV-1 or HSV-2)
• Median days from symptom onset to seroconversion
– HSV-1: 25 days
– HSV-2, no prior HSV-1 21 days
– HSV-2, prior HSV-1 23 days
• ELISA faster than full WB for HSV-2
• % seroconverting by 6wks, 3mos, 6mos
– HSV-2, no prior HSV-1 77%, 93%, 93%
– HSV-2, prior HSV-1 59%, 73%, 83%

About 5% of persons with herpes do not develop antibodies on the HerpeSelect assay.  Please appreciate that the numbers above are for the HerpeSelect and are likely about right for other gG-specific antibody tests but not for other, less reliable non-specific tests.  

If your question relates to the appearance of lesions, while it is true that many people with genital herpes do not develop lesions of infection immediately after acquisition of infection, most do reasonably soon after infection- in the first year.

Hope this is helpful.  EWH

[Curiousitykilledthecat1225]

A related discussion, How quick to seroconvert was started.