How is human papillomavirus transmitted? This is a common question. We will understand 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 humanity is infected with one or another type of this virus. Today, there are more than 60 types of this infection, however, only a small part of them is a health hazard and is the subject of close attention of researchers.
HPV is a type of papillomavirus that belongs to their family of papovaviruses. The main source of infection is considered to be a sick person, as well as a virus carrier, that is, a similar infection is transmitted exclusively from person to person.
How is 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 HPV is that this disease is not sexually transmitted in the usual sense of this concept.
Is the human papillomavirus transmitted sexually? This is only one of all the existing methods of infection, but far from the only one. That is why doctors say that the use of barrier methods of contraception can not always protect a person from the papilloma virus.
Papilloma virus: transmission methods
In general, about 140 varieties of the papilloma virus are known to 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 pathway to the human body.
We will discuss how the human papillomavirus is transmitted, causing genital warts, anus, and sometimes genital cancer.
Genital and contact routes of transmission
HPV can be sexually transmitted in the presence of any options for sexual intimacy - traditional, anal or oral contact.
In order to become infected, any such contact of the damaged mucous membrane or area of the skin directly with the papilloma is sufficient. HPV can be obtained through kisses - if the person has papilloma in the mouth and the partner has a wound in the tongue or on the inner surfaces of the cheeks or lips.
The highest risk of infection is through anal contact, since this kind of sexual intimacy is most traumatic. Other options are not so dangerous, but also possible. It is important to understand the following: normal close contact with an HPV carrier can lead to infection even when there is no sexual penetration. How is the human papillomavirus transmitted?
Household transmission of papilloma virus
In addition to sexual infection, HPV can be transmitted from person to person through the household. This virus can survive outside the human body for about 3 hours on surfaces such as wet laundry and towels. However, one must understand that not every type of virus spreads in this way - its individual strains “prefer” various zones of the human body and organs.
Thus, the anal-genital varieties of this virus are very rarely transmitted through the household. But, for example, a strain that is capable of causing plantar warts is transmitted, as a rule, in a domestic way, most often through contact with other people's shoes, personal hygiene items, clothing, or surfaces on which elements of the virus might linger.
Is the human papillomavirus transmitted through a kiss? Surely.
Spontaneous infection
The papilloma virus 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 papilloma with damaged skin or mucous membrane.
It is always important to remember such situations in the domestic sphere - when, for example, carrying out such procedures as shaving, hair removal, scrubbing and other processes that can injure the skin. In addition, contact with damaged skin with papillomas should be avoided, as well as not directly damaging them themselves.
Transmission of viral infection during pregnancy and childbirth
Is the human papillomavirus transmitted to a child ? More recently, in cases of detection of this virus in newborns, it was believed that children could only become infected using the only way - during birth, when there is close contact with the birth canal of the mother. 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 the study of the likelihood and other ways of infection in infancy, for example, directly through the placenta, while still in the womb.
Doctors suspected the possibility of such situations even when they began to detect the presence of HPV in children who were born through cesarean section. It seemed very strange - the children could not contact the birth canal of their mothers, but were infected. This meant that the strain of the virus could be transmitted to children during the period of 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, studies were written that revealed the presence of the virus in the mother’s placenta. 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 reported. The fact of how high the risk of infection of a baby can be even before birth cannot be determined exactly, since there is still too little data on this topic.
Now it’s clear how the human papillomavirus is transmitted.
What kind of violation is causing?
The virus enters the human body through microscopic lesions in the skin and mucous membranes. The wounds can be so tiny that sometimes it is not possible to visually see them.
Penetration occurs as follows. Skin is the most complex and largest organ of a person. 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 white blood cells).
However, they all work only in cases where skin barriers remain impassable. Any, even the most insignificant 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 the body, it begins to invade the cells of the upper layer of the skin (epithelium) and mucous membranes. This microorganism only affects these cells - it cannot live in the internal organs and in the blood.
The epithelium consists, as a rule, of several layers. The papilloma virus invades the young skin cells that are created in its lower layer. There, the infection is hidden for a certain time. It is impossible to say exactly how much time this “sleep” process continues - it can be weeks or even years. However, after awakening, HPV begins to multiply actively.
As the layers of the upper layer of the skin are constantly updated, all new cells are gradually "raised" to its surface. Together with such cells, the virus rises - layer by layer. In the end, he is at the very top and begins to grow, taking the form of a wart.
The word "multiply" does not quite apply to 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 is the human papillomavirus transmitted to men, not everyone knows.
Varieties of papillomas
Very often, human immunity is able to completely cleanse the body of viruses of this nature. The time that he needs for this can be different: it depends on the type of virus and the strength of the immune defense, however, it is usually 1-2 years. HPV lingers on skin for a long time. In such cases, experts talk about the chronic course of this infection.
Cells that are damaged by the virus can also respond differently to its activity. Some of them simply die, the body replaces them with new ones. In other cells, complex processes begin to change their structure and functional qualities, for example, oncological changes in cervical cells arise in a similar way. Others - under the influence of the papilloma virus, random reproduction begins and can cause tissue proliferation. In this way, papillomas develop, as well as condylomas.
Another variant of the development of diseases is described and proved - when the papilloma virus enters the body, but does not cause any changes, and completely disappears after a certain time.
We examined how HPV is transmitted and how papillomavirus is transmitted. Why is it dangerous?
Oncology
For the papilloma virus, and especially for those of its strains that can be transmitted sexually, there is another property - high oncogenicity, that is, the ability to develop cancerous diseases. Scientists all over the world are actively researching HPV, as well as its role in the development of such diseases, but today all studies are unsuccessful. The risk of contracting cancer caused by the papillomavirus is still very high.
Is the human papillomavirus transmitted to men?
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 papilloma viruses.
Chance of infection
Indirectly, they can be judged by how often a specific type of this virus is found in humans. Fortunately, the most infectious types of the virus cannot have high levels of oncogenicity.
For example, of the “sexual” varieties of HPV, the most common are viruses of the 6th and 11th types, which make up over 90% of cases of the disease with the occurrence of genital warts. These types belong to the group of strains having low oncogenicity. And, for example, HPV 16 and HPV 18 viruses, which were found in studies of 75% of women with cervical cancer, are relatively rare.
In general, the probability 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 sex.
The risks of infection by domestic means have not yet been reliably established, however, it is known that they are not quite great.
Disease prevention
Unfortunately, to date, it has already been established that persistent immunity to the human papilloma virus cannot be produced. Antibodies to this virus stop appearing after 2-5 years. This means that after a given period of time, a person can get sick again. In addition, even this short immunity can only form to a certain type of virus, which means that infection with other strains of the 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 does happen, you need to think about the prevention of such a disease. It is important to remember that the human papillomavirus is sexually transmitted.
Daily HPV Prevention Methods
No matter what kind of virus is involved, preventive measures are the same for all of them. These include:
- Strict adherence to hygiene rules, which significantly helps to maintain the protective barriers of the skin, as well as the mucous membranes. Thus, maintaining himself clean, a person helps his immunity to work correctly and easily, and he, in turn, more effectively copes with any attempts to invade from the outside.
- Using condoms during sexual intercourse significantly reduces the risk of transmitting these viruses. However, unfortunately, a condom cannot guarantee absolute protection against the penetration of the virus. Recall that this infection can get inside even through skin-skin contact. In this regard, those areas that are not covered by a condom are most vulnerable to the penetration of viruses into the body. It is known that oncological changes in cervical cells occur much less often in those women whose sexual partners use condoms.
- Inflammatory diseases of the genitourinary system significantly weaken the protective mechanisms of those organs in which they appeared, therefore, such diseases should be treated on time.
- Women whose virus types 16 and 18 are found are required to be regularly observed by a doctor, since infection with even these types of viruses is not a sentence. From the moment of the HPV infection of the body to a cancerous state, more than one year sometimes passes. If you are regularly examined and tested at least 1 time per year, this can help in detecting changes that are dangerous to your health and begin timely treatment.
Now we know how the human papillomavirus is transmitted. The ways and means of transmission are described in detail by us.