Are cold sores contagious

Contagious factor

Once a person is befallen with cold sores or meets another person who has problems with this condition, first thing that certainly springs to one’s mind is whether these are contagious, i.e. transmittable from one person to another. Unfortunately for many, the answer is a positive one. And to make the entire matter a bit more complicated and unpleasant, their contagious nature spans over wide range of variations. For one, the most frequent causer of cold sores, the herpes simplex virus is known to be quite easily transmittable, despite the fact that the person in question may not have active cold sores.

So, the bottom line is that cold sores are contagious in nature and therefore, they should be watched after as much as possible. In addition, the HSV-1, which is responsible for cold sores instances, is also quite contagious present in as much as 80% of the entire population. Those people who are befallen by this virus experience this usually while they are still very young – by the time they get to the five years of age mark. One frightening but true fact is that once this virus finds its way into the person’s body, it remains there until the end. Inside it is inactive and in a state of sleep most of the time.

As far at the target spot is concerned, the virus in question exhibits most of the preferences towards the mouth of the infected person. However, it is known that it can affect other parts of the person’s body as well. Thus, the conclusion is that it does not discriminate much.

Spreading patterns

One extremely important fact to always have in mind is that transmission of the virus can occur even if the infected person is not experiencing the outbreak at that specific moment in time. Regarded as the most frequent manner in which the virus in question is transmitted is by way of some object that the infected person has previously used, e.g. a comb, toothbrush and items alike. Once the infected person has used any of such items, contagious virus particles get transferred onto the object itself, thus making that very same object also “contagious”, since the next person who uses it and who is not infected is at a great risk of coming down with the virus too.

Some other ways in which cold sores can be transmitted from one person to another is by direct skin to skin contact, through coughing, sneezing, touching the infected person’s belongings, or by simple touch of the infected person.