Antiherpes drugs: promises and pitfalls

In recent years several selective antiherpes drugs have been developed which all show great promise for the systemic and topical treatment of herpes simplex virus and varicella-zoster virus infections. These new antiherpes agents include acyclovir, bromovinyldeoxyuridine, fluoroiodoaracytosine and phosphonoformate. Acyclovir has already been licensed for both topical and systemic use, and it is expected that other compounds will follow soon. Although this new generation of antiherpes drugs suffer from some drawbacks, i.e. narrow spectrum of activity, inefficacy during virus latency, and the possible emergence of drug-resistant virus strains, these limitations by no means outweigh the potentials of these drugs in the therapy and prophylaxis of herpesvirus infections in humans.