[Status quo of the researches on HSV vaccines]

Herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection can cause severe recurrent disease in humans and establish lifelong latency in the host. Furthermore, it can significantly increase the risk of HIV infection and bring substantial psychosexual as well as physical morbidity to the patients. Several antiviral therapies are available for the control of its symptoms and spreading, but they can neither cure nor alter the nature of HSV infection. The development of an efficacious HSV vaccine is therefore necessitated for controlling the occurrence, transmission and recurrence of the infection. Those that have undergone clinical evaluation include subunit vaccines, attenuated live virus vaccines, replication defective virus vaccine, naked DNA vaccines and viral vector vaccines. Most of the above vaccine strategies have elicited protective immunity in animal models, but none has yet been effective in human beings. For all that, scholars have never stopped their exploration for an effective vaccine against the notorious virus. The authors present an overview of a few most promising candidate vaccines for the prevention and treatment of HSV infection.