How is the human papillomavirus transmitted? This is a common question. Let's look into it in more detail.
Human papillomavirus is one of the most common infections in the world. According to research data, more than 95% of all mankind is infected with one or another type of this virus. To date, there are more than 60 types of this infection, but only a small part of them poses a he alth hazard and is the object of close attention of researchers.
HPV is a type of papillomavirus that belongs to the papovavirus family. The main source of infection is a sick person, as well as a virus carrier, that is, such an infection is transmitted exclusively from person to person.
How is the human papillomavirus transmitted?
It is known that more than 40 varieties of papillomavirus can affect the genitals of people. One of the main features of HPVis that this disease is not a sexually transmitted disease in the usual sense of this concept.
Is the human papillomavirus sexually transmitted? This is just one of all existing methods of infection, but far from the only one. That is why doctors note that the use of barrier methods of contraception can not always protect a person from the papillomavirus.
Papilloma virus: modes of transmission
In general, about 140 varieties of papillomavirus are known in medicine. But only about 50 of them have the ability to affect the genitals. Most of these 50 types enter the genital tract, which is the only way into the human body.
Let's discuss how the human papillomavirus is transmitted, causing warts of the genitals, anus, and sometimes cancer of the genital organs.
Sexual and contact routes of transmission
HPV can be transmitted sexually through any type of sexual intimacy - traditional, anal or oral contact.
In order to become infected, any such contact of the damaged mucous membrane or skin area directly with the papilloma is enough. HPV can be obtained through kissing - if a person has a papilloma in the mouth, and the partner has a wound on the tongue or on the inner surfaces of the cheeks or lips.
The highest risk of infection is through anal intercourse, since this type of sexual intimacy is the most traumatic. Other options are not so dangerous, but alsopossible. It is important to understand the following: Normal close contact with an HPV carrier can lead to infection even when there has been no sexual penetration. How is the human papillomavirus transmitted?
Household transmission of papillomavirus
In addition to sexual transmission, HPV can be transmitted from person to person through everyday contact. This virus is able to survive outside the human body for about 3 hours on surfaces such as damp linen and towels. However, you need to understand that not every type of virus spreads in this way - its individual strains "prefer" different zones of the human body and organs.
Thus, the anal-genital varieties of this virus are very rarely transmitted by household routes. But, for example, a strain that can cause plantar warts is transmitted, as a rule, in a household way, most often through contact with someone else's shoes, personal hygiene items, clothing, or surfaces on which elements of the virus could linger.
Is the human papillomavirus transmitted through kissing? For sure.
Self-infection
The papillomavirus cannot spread throughout the human body beyond the area where it originally settled. However, people can infect themselves on their own - in cases where they touch the damaged skin or mucous membrane to the papilloma.
It is always important to remember about such situations in the domestic sphere - when implementing, for example, such procedures,like shaving, epilation, scrubbing and other processes that can injure the skin. In addition, you should avoid contact with damaged areas of the skin with papillomas, and do not damage them directly.
Transmission of viral infection during pregnancy and childbirth
Is the human papillomavirus transmitted to a child? Until recently, in cases of detection of this virus in newborns, it was assumed that children could become infected only through the only way - during the birth process, when there is close contact with the mother's birth canal. In this way, infection occurs in about 7-10% of all cases.
Whether the human papillomavirus is transmitted is interesting to many.
But today, researchers are seriously working on studying the possibility and other ways of infection in infancy, for example, directly through the placenta, while still in the womb.
Doctors began to suspect the possibility of such situations even when they began to detect the presence of HPV in children who were born by caesarean section. It seemed very strange - the children could not come into contact with the birth canal of their mothers, but they were infected. This meant that the strain of the virus could be transmitted to children during fetal development through the placenta.
In 2008, in the scientific journal VirologyJournal, and in 2012, in the international medical publication The Journal of Infectious Diseases, it was written about studies through whichthe presence of the virus in the mother's placenta was established. Previously, this fact was refuted, because this virus is not able to circulate in human blood. How exactly the infection penetrates the placenta is not yet known. However, such cases have already been registered. Just how high the risk of a baby being infected before birth can be cannot be precisely determined, as there is still too little data on this topic.
Now it is clear how the human papillomavirus is transmitted.
What disruption does it cause?
The virus enters the human body through microscopic lesions in the skin and mucous membranes. The wounds can be so tiny that it is sometimes impossible to see them visually.
Penetration occurs as follows. The skin is the most complex and largest human organ. Its main task is to protect the body from various external influences. In addition to skin cells, other elements also participate in such protection - bacteria that live on the surface of the skin, as well as cells responsible for immune resistance to any kind of danger (for example, macrophages and leukocytes).
However, they all work only in cases where the skin barriers remain impenetrable. Any, even the slightest violation of the integrity or inflammation of the skin, violates this barrier, and an infection can enter the body, especially when it comes to a tiny virus.
After all, even through a kiss, the human papillomavirus is transmitted.
Having penetrated into the body, it begins to penetrate into the cells of the upper layer of the skin (epithelium) and mucous membranes. This microorganism affects exclusively these cells - it cannot live in the internal organs and in the blood.
The epithelium usually consists of several layers. The papilloma virus is introduced into young skin cells that are created in its lower layer. There, the infection is latent for a certain time. It is impossible to say exactly how long this process of "sleep" lasts - it can be weeks or even years. However, after awakening, HPV begins to multiply actively.
As the layers of the top layer of the skin are constantly being renewed, all new cells are gradually "lifted" to its surface. Together with such cells, the virus rises - layer by layer. It ends up at the very top and begins to grow, taking the form of a wart.
The word "reproduce" does not quite fit the viruses. Since they are not full-fledged living organisms, they are not able to reproduce on their own, but simply provoke the host cell to produce young viral particles. This process is called "replication" in medicine.
How the human papillomavirus is transmitted to a man, not everyone knows.
Varieties of papillomas
Very often, a person's immunity is able to completely cleanse the body of viruses of this nature. The time it takes for him to do this may be different: it depends on the type of virus and the strength of the immune defense, howeverit is usually 1-2 years. HPV lingers for a long time in the layers of the skin. In such cases, experts talk about the chronic course of this infection.
Cells of the body that are damaged by the virus may also react differently to its activity. Some of them simply die, the body replaces them with new ones. In other cells, complex processes of changing their structure and functional qualities begin, for example, oncological changes occur in the cells of the cervix in a similar way. Others - under the influence of the papillomavirus, begin random reproduction and can cause tissue proliferation. In this way, papillomas develop, as well as condylomas.
Another variant of the development of diseases has been described and proven - when the papillomavirus enters the body, but does not cause any changes, and disappears completely after a certain time.
We looked at how HPV is transmitted and how HPV is transmitted. Why is he dangerous?
Oncology
For the papillomavirus, and especially for those of its strains that can be transmitted sexually, there is another property - high oncogenicity, that is, the ability to develop cancer. Scientists around the world are actively exploring HPV, as well as its role in the development of such diseases, but to date, all studies have been unsuccessful. The risk of developing cancer caused by the papilloma virus is still very high.
Is the human papillomavirus transmittedmen?
It turns out that the likelihood of contracting HPV strains depends on how virulent they are. So far, researchers have very little data to compare the virulence of all strains of papillomaviruses.
Probability of infection
Indirectly, they can be judged by how common a particular type of this virus is in humans. Fortunately, the most contagious types of the virus cannot have high levels of oncogenicity.
For example, among the "sexual" varieties of HPV, the most common are viruses of the 6th and 11th types, which account for over 90% of cases of the disease with the onset of genital warts. These types belong to the group of strains with low oncogenicity. And, for example, HPV 16 and HPV 18 viruses, which in the course of studies were found in 75% of women with cervical cancer, can be relatively rare.
In general, the likelihood of contracting one of the types of HPV that affects the genitals is approximately 80% - even after a single sexual contact. In this case, the most frequent infection occurs after anal sexual contact.
Risks of infection through household transmission have not yet been reliably established, however, it is known that they are not entirely high.
Disease prevention
Unfortunately, today it has already been found out that people cannot develop strong immunity to the papillomavirus. Antibodies to this virus cease to appear after 2-5 years. This means that after a given period of time, a person can get sick again. Moreover, even this shortimmunity can be formed only to a certain type of virus, which means that infection with other strains of a pathological organism is possible at any time, regardless of the fact of recovery.
HPV very rarely causes the most dangerous consequences for humans. However, given that this still happens, it is necessary to think about the prevention of such a disease. It is important to remember that the human papillomavirus is sexually transmitted.
HPV daily prevention methods
No matter what kind of virus we are talking about, the prevention measures for all of them are the same. These include:
- Strict adherence to hygiene rules, which greatly helps to maintain the protective barriers of the skin, as well as mucous membranes. Thus, by keeping oneself clean, a person helps his immunity to work correctly and easily, and he, in turn, copes more effectively with any attempts to invade from outside.
- The use of condoms during sexual intercourse significantly reduces the risk of transmitting these viruses. However, unfortunately, the condom cannot guarantee absolute protection against the penetration of the virus. Recall that this infection can get inside even through skin-to-skin contact. In this regard, those areas that are not covered by a condom are the most vulnerable to the penetration of viruses into the body. It is known that cancerous changes in the cells of the cervix occur much less often in those women whose sexual partners use condoms.
- Inflammatory diseases of the genitourinary system significantly weaken the protective mechanisms of thoseorgans in which they manifested, so such diseases should be treated in time.
- Women diagnosed with virus types 16 and 18 are required to see a doctor regularly, since infection with even these types of viruses is not a sentence. From the moment HPV damages the body to a cancerous condition, sometimes more than one year passes. If regularly examined and tested at least once a year, this can help in detecting changes dangerous to he alth and start timely treatment.
Now we know how the human papillomavirus is transmitted. Ways and methods of transmission are described in detail by us.
