ABSTRACT
From January 1998 to December 2004, 207 out of 1125 samples were HSV isolation positive and typed. Two groups of patients, Thai and foreigner, as well as site of infection, non-genital and genital area, were identified. The prevalence of non-genital HSV-1 infection from 27 samples of Thai patients was 81.84%. Out of 180 genital samples, 39.02% HSV-1 and 43.09% HSV-2 from 123 Thai patients and 36.84% HSV-1 and 49.12% HSV-2 of 57 foreigner patients were determined. Moreover mixed infection of HSV-1 and HSV-2 was found in both Thai and foreigner groups, 17.89% and 14.04%, respectively. The prevalence of genital HSV-1 infection in Thai patients chronologically increases from 1.6% to 56.91% from of 1985 to 2004. Increase of HSV-1 genital infection and mixed HSV-1 and HSV-2 infection in Thai people might probably be due to changing of sexual behavior in the AIDS era.
Subject(s)
Antibodies, Viral/isolation & purification , Female , Fluorescent Antibody Technique, Indirect , Health Surveys , Herpes Genitalis/diagnosis , Herpesvirus 1, Human/immunology , Herpesvirus 2, Human/immunology , Hospitals, Urban , Humans , Laboratories, Hospital , Male , Prevalence , Sexual Behavior , Thailand/epidemiologyABSTRACT
Whole genomic polymorphisms for 20 HSV-1 and 20 HSV-2 isolates from Thai patients were analyzed by means of Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism (RFLP) analysis using 4 restriction endonucleases: BamHI, Kpnl, HindIII, and EcoRI. Variations in cleavage sites among the HSV-1 and HSV-2 isolates were compared to the cleavage patterns of standard HSV-1 strain KOS and HSV-2 strain Baylor 186. Although 70% of HSV-1 isolates with BamHI digestion, 50% with Kpnl, 75% with HindIII and 70% with EcoRI digestion were found to be similar to the standard HSV-1 (KOS) pattern, new BamHI restriction sites were detected in some HSV-1 isolates. For HSV-2 isolates, 85% had the same pattern as the standard HSV-2 (Baylor 186) after digestion with BamHI, HindIII, and EcoRI. No difference was observed with Kpnl digestion. When the patterns from the 4 enzymes were combined, HSV-1 isolates showed more divergence than the HSV-2 isolates. HSV-1 isolates found in both non-genital and genital lesions had more variety than the HSV-2 isolates. This suggests that intratypic variations in HSV-2 are fewer than in HSV-1.