If you are wondering why there is still no known real cure for herpes even now, there is one reason for that. Granted, pharmaceutical companies have been successful in formulating cures for illnesses that have been, for the longest time, declared to be untreatable. Just take the example of pneumonia. Its was thought to be incurable in the past, considering the loss of lives it has become associated with. Today, pneumonia patients are simply given antibiotic courses, and it is not considered a big deal.

Tuberculosis, hepatitis and typhoid fever can now be easily treated using simple and inexpensive pharmaceutical products. Given that background, then, it baffles many people why the researchers in the pharmaceutical industry have been unable to develop a cure 'for a simple condition like herpes.' Pharmaceutical companies have trouble coming up with a cure for herpes for the simple reason that they are having trouble pinning down the virus that is causing the disease; it is simply too good at keeping itself hidden. This virus stays in hiding, then surfaces only long enough to bring about the herpes and attacking the patient, then going back to hide yet again.

A few herpes virus will be enough to cause the outbreak while the others could just stay hidden. The body's immune system could fight off these viruses whenever they surface. There are also some drugs that can be taken. But there are still those that have remained hidden. The drugs or the antibodies will not be able to reach them. So it becomes hard to cure herpes completely, because at any given point in time, some of the viruses that causes it are always in hiding and they can't be reached by drugs or get tackled by the body's own immunity.

But there is hope yet that a real herpes cure can be formulated soon. After all, the pharmaceutical industry has successfully tapped into viruses' DNA genomes in order to come up with cures for various illnesses. In some researches, they seem to have identified the exact gene that has been serving as an effective hiding place for the viruses. Now their efforts are turned towards making sure the gene does not develop any further. Once that happens, we will have drugs that are capable of combating the herpes viruses that are visible, whilst also effective 'smoking out' those that are in hiding (by disabling their hiding mechanisms). Now, you can have your oral herpes or even your genital herpes cured for good.

While waiting for that time to come, however, what we can do for the moment is to make use of the currently available treatments. Although these companies have not yet been able to come up with a real herpes cure, they have successfully formulated treatments and drugs that deal with the symptoms. Herpes is not really likely to be a major issue for a person who makes use of the herpes treatments that are available. They are quite good at ameliorating the symptoms of herpes, though they don't cure it completely.