Acyclovir Therapy for the Orofacial and Ganglionic HSV Infection in Hairless Mice

Abstract

Acyclovir (ACV) therapy, topical or systemic, showed a significantly high therapeutic efficacy for facial Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) infection in hairless mice. When topical ACV treatment was initiated very early, i.e., three h post-inoculation, the number of mice with latent HSV infection in their trigeminal ganglia was significantly reduced. These results indicate that ACV clearly merits further investigation as an antiviral agent for therapy of orofacial HSV infections.