Summary and recommendations from a National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) workshop on "Next Generation Herpes Simplex Virus Vaccines".

At an NIAID workshop entitled “Next Generation Herpes Simlex Virus Vaccines: The Challenges and Opportunities” on October 2–23, 2012, researchers agreed that there was a great medical eed for a herpes simplex virus (HSV) vaccine and recommended ncreased focus on all stages of herpes vaccine research, develpment, and testing, including basic vaccine discovery research, evelopment and manufacturing of vaccines, human immunology, nd clinical trials. While the need for an HSV vaccine has been recgnized for decades, in the last 17 years only recombinant HSV lycoprotein D (gD) alone or with gB has been tested in randomized, ouble-blind, placebo controlled human trials to prevent genital erpes. In 2012, the results of the Herpevac Trial for Women, the argest HSV vaccine trial to date, involving over 8000 women who ere seronegative for HSV-1 and HSV-2 were reported. The vaccine ailed to reach its primary endpoint, reduction in occurrence of gental herpes disease due to either HSV-1 or HSV-2. While there was odest reduction in HSV-1 genital disease, there was no reduction n HSV-2 genital disease. The goal of the meeting was to reassess he status of the field, identify gaps in knowledge, and propose new pproaches and solutions to fill the gaps.