U.S. Health Watch

No matter what the diagnosis, finding out that you have a chronic illness can be a frightening and confusing experience. Ten steps, provided by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, can help people cope with the news more easily.

Herpes Simplex is an infection caused by the virus called Herpes Simplex Virus. The virus is of two types. HSV1 and HSV2. Herpes Simplex causes sores, and rashes on face and genitals.

Bird flu is a disease caused by a specific type of avian (bird) influenza virus, the so-called H5N1 virus. This virus was first discovered in birds in China in 1997, and since then has infected 125 people in Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Indonesia, killing 64 of them. It is spread by infected migratory birds (including wild ducks and geese) to domestic poultry (primarily chickens, ducks, and turkeys), and then to humans.

Vaccines have come a long way since 1022 A.D., when a Buddhist nun fashioned what many consider the precursor to vaccines in an affort to fight smallpox.

Everyday the number of people around the world that find that they have herpes is staggering. Over 50% of the white population, over 70% of the African American population and over 60% of the Japanese population have herpes.

Human infections have occurred in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Indonesia, and now Turkey. Almost all human infections have occurred by humans ingesting blood or insufficiently cooked meat from birds infected with the virus, or being in close contact with sick birds?children playing with sick or dead birds for example.

Syphilis is a common and well known sexually transmitted disease (STD). Sexual intercoarse is the most common of 3 possible ways to contract it. If it is not transmitted sexually, it is possible, but rare, to get an infection through direct contact. Your body will also accept the disease from your birth mother. This is called congenital syphilis.

The is only a one letter difference between the words herpes and heroes, and the letters p and o are only one letter apart, which means that no two words can be closer than herpes and heroes.

Central to the problem of dealing with bird flu is diagnosis. A number of upper respiratory infections have similar symptoms?at least at the onset of the illness, including the common cold, seasonal influenza, and bird flu.