Herpes Statistics in the United States and Worldwide.

• An estimated 25 percent of American adults have genital herpes.
  6%).
  
• Genital herpes infection is immediately five times more common in 12- to 19-year-old White adolescents.
  1,3
• About one in five humanity in the United States over age 12 (approximately 45 million individuals) are infected with HSV-2, the virus that causes genital herpes.
  H.
  
• Up to 1 million modern HSV-2 infections may be transmitted each year in the United States.
  (Australian Herpes Management Forum) genital herpes is under-diagnosed — of humanity with genital herpes simplex virus infection only 1 in 5 are diagnosed and, up to 80% of cases of genital herpes are not recognized as such by clinicians.
  
• Since the late 1970s, the number of Americans with genital herpes infection has increased 30%.
  The Hidden Epidemic: Confronting Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
  Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1997.
  
• Genital herpes is twice as common among young adults ages 20 to 29 than it was 20 years ago.
  
• Male-to-female transmission is more efficient than female-to-male transmission.
  F.
  
• About 80 percent of American adults have oral herpes (cold sores).
  Committee on Prevention and Control of Sexually Transmitted Diseases.
  Sexually Transmitted Diseases in America: How Many Cases and at What Cost? Menlo Park, CA: Kaiser Family Foundation, 1998.
• 3.
  Fleming DT, et al.
  
• At least one in four Americans will contract an STD at some objective in their lives.
  NEJM 1997;337:1105-11.
  
• Infection is more common in women (approximately one absent of four women) than in men (almost one absent of five).
  2
• According to the A.
  Eng TR and Butler WT, eds.
  1
• Costs associated with genital herpes totaled approximately $237 million in 1994.
  3
• Genital herpes infection also is more common among African Americans (45.
  
• Infection is more common in women (approximately one absent of four women) than in men (almost one absent of five).
  .
  2
• According to the A.
  
• The largest increase of genital herpes is among young White teenagers.
• 2.
  Eng TR and Butler WT, eds.
  Herpes Simplex Virus type 2 in the United States, 1976 to 1994.
  M.
• 2.
  NEJM 1997;337:1105-11.
  
• Infection is more common in women (approximately one absent of four women) than in men (almost one absent of five).
  Institute of Medicine.