How old is Herpes?

This is a question almost nobody has ever thought about; I have, but I’m weird like that. This virus infects approximately two thirds of the current human population but long has it been bothering us for?

Another group of people at the University of California and the San Diego School of Medicine did as well. And what they found was quite interesting.

Once again the chimpanzees have “shared” another virus with us.

It was found that HSV (-1 and-2) infected hominids (great apes) approximately 6 million years ago then moved from ancient chimpanzees to humans ancestors (homo erectus) around 1.6 million years ago.

This limited research of eight (8) monkey and ape species found that homo sapiens are the only primates that have two version the herpes virus (HSV type -1 and -2).

Another astounding find was that HSV-1 had been present in humans longer then HSV-2. As a species humans have only had HSV-2 for approximately 1.6 millions years and it was found to be very similar to the chimpanzees herpes virus.