The estimated number of people in the US with herpes simplex is 65 million,
but I think that number is less for just genital herpes. The average for
oral herpes is 65% and for genital it is 20%. As far as other countries go,
the country with the highest ratio of genital herpes statistics is Greenland
at 75%!

The only way you can tell is if you get tests for HSV1 and HSV2 and get the
IgM and IgG tests, and try to gauge the positive to negative between the two
antibodies. If you tested positive for herpes with IgM and not IgG then it
is nearly impossible to know when you got it, aside for thinking about when
you thought your primary might have been and that is iffy. If you test
positive for IgG and not IgM then you can pretty much bet that you got it in
the past week. The only thing is that IgG results arent that accurate
anyway, and with any blood test there is about a 6-4% inaccurate margin. I
heard good things about the Western Blot test.

Al

I'm glad Al responded to your question.

I can tell you the majority of people with herpes are the ones who don't know
they have it.

There is no way to know when you were infected unless it is a new infection.
Unless you wish to play a complicated game with blood tests.  I prefer the
Herpes Specific Western Blot test because you don't have to mess with any
guesswork.

If you just recently started having symptoms, know it takes about 12-16 weeks
for antibodies to build up in your body enough to show up on a blood test.  So,
a Western Blot test performed early would either show a positive or a negative
to herpes.  If positive, then you know you have been infected longer than 12-16
weeks which means you could have been carrying the virus for days, weeks, years,
decades.  A negative result (along with obvious herpes symptoms) would indicate
a recent infection, within the last 12 to 16 weeks.  It's always good to
follow-up a negative blood test with another one a few months later just to see
if you really are infected.  A positive on the follow-up test would confirm you
have a new infection.

ar

90% of people that have genital herpes do not know they have it.

The best way to find out if you have herpes is to be properly tested for it
since it is not included in the routine std testing process.

Herpes Testing:
http://www.yoshi2me.com/genital-herpes.html

Hope this helps,

Angela :)