Is acyclovir effective in treating herpes?

Herpes is a disease caused by a viral infection. It not only threatens physical health, but also causes psychological damage to the patient, especially genital herpes, which can hurt the patient's self-esteem and may be transmitted to the other half. It requires active treatment. Acyclovir is a common method for treating herpes.

1. Acyclovir is a synthetic purine nucleoside analog. It is mainly used for various infections caused by herpes simplex virus, and can be used for primary or recurrent skin, mucous membrane, external genitalia infections and HSV infections in immunocompromised patients. It is the drug of choice for the treatment of HSV encephalitis, and is superior to adenosine in reducing morbidity and mortality. It can also be used for infections such as herpes zoster, Epstein-Barr virus, and chickenpox in immunocompromised individuals. Topicals are applied to the skin only; acyclovir is poorly absorbed through the skin.

2. It has an inhibitory effect on herpes simplex virus, varicella-zoster virus, cytomegalovirus, etc. in vitro. After entering the herpes virus-infected cells, the drug competes with deoxynucleoside for viral thymidine kinase or cellular kinase, and is phosphorylated into activated acyclovir triphosphate, which then inhibits viral replication in two ways:

1. Interfere with viral DNA polymerase and inhibit viral replication;

2. Under the action of DNA polymerase, it binds to the growing DNA chain, causing the extension of the DNA chain to be interrupted.

Through these two effects, the virus's DNA complex can be destroyed, thereby destroying the virus's living environment and achieving the effect of treating the disease. Therefore, it can treat herpes simplex virus infection and herpes zoster. It can be taken orally for the treatment of herpes zoster in immunocompetents and mild cases in immunocompromised patients. The injection is used to treat severe herpes in immunocompromised patients.

From the above, we can know that acyclovir can treat herpes, and it works quickly and has definite efficacy.