Herpes vaccines represent a breakthrough in the anti-herpes battle which has raged for centuries.
In the first century A.D., Tiberius, Emperor of Rome, actually banned kissing to combat a herpes epidemic. Although many think of herpes as a skin infection, it is actually an inflammation of the sensory nerves. In between outbreaks, the herpes DNA survives in nerve centers at the base of the brain called ganglia. During outbreaks, the DNA replicates, forming a virus. The virus passes down the nerve to the skin, where it causes lesions.