Be warned: Kissing could give you cancer

Kenya: The act of kissing, especially
deep kissing, can give you cancer, a
study carried out in Mombasa has
shown.
For more than a decade, it has been
known that a strain of the sexually
transmitted virus called herpes, which
is quite common in most people, is
linked to the development of the skin
cancer called Kaposi sarcoma.
However, scientists have been
investigating the most likely mode of
transmission of the herpes virus 8
from one person to another. Now,
they think saliva and mouth-to-mouth
interaction between people could be
it.
On Friday, researchers from the
universities of Nairobi and Washington
in US, published a partial report of
their findings from a study carried out
on 40 women in Mombasa. It indicates
close mouth-to-mouth interaction
could be the biggest possible route of
transmission.

A full report, given to the media
yesterday by one of the investigators,
Prof Walter Jaoko of the University of Nairobi, and one of the country’s top
HIV researchers, concludes that saliva
is the most likely source of
transmission.
The team says it found high
concentration of the herpes virus in
the saliva of 27 of the 40 study
participants. “Salivary transmission
may be an important route of
infection because the mouth proved
to be an important storage of the virus
from where it can be transmitted to
others, eventually causing skin cancer
in some.”
Cancerous agent
Prof Jaoko’s team says the human
herpes virus 8 or HHV 8 is the
cancerous agent that causes all forms
of the skin tumor – Kaposi sarcoma –
ranging between 40 and 80 per cent in
Kenya and much of Africa.
In the Mombasa study, samples were
collected daily for 30 days and sent to
the University of Washington for
analysis. The researchers say the rates
and quantities of herpes viruses found
in the Kenyan women was nearly
double what had been observed in
other studies in Africa and the United
States. “The study demonstrates high
rates and quantities of the herpes
virus residing in the throats of these
women and more so those infected
with HIV and with high CD4
counts.”Now the team is
recommending that to reduce the
incidence of this type of skin cancer,
people diagnosed with herpes and are
HIV positive be put on antiretroviral
drugs as early as possible.
The first scientific connection between
kissing and herpes infection was
raised in 2000 by researchers in
Washington University, the same
involved in the current investigation.
The team had tested saliva samples in
gay men in the US for the presence of
the herpes virus. Led by Dr John Pauk
they had compared the level of herpes
virus in saliva of these men with what
was found in other body fluids and
concluded that saliva was the most
possible rout of transmission to
others.
The study if confirmed, could have
serious implications not only in adult
socialisation but among mothers who
pre-chew food for their babies or are
in the habit of kissing their children.