ABSTRACT
Screening Universal screening is not generally offered to pregnant women, but has been recently proposed (Fig. 49.1). There has been no evidence that screening women to identify pregnancies at risk of new infections will effectively decrease incidence of infection at term, as such a study would require thousands of women. Screening to identify pregnant women with asymptomatic herpes infections may have no value at present without any known safe and effective interventions to prevent an already unlikely neonatal transmission. All pregnant women should be asked about their own and their partner’s histories of genital (and oral) herpes and examined for evidence of active herpes at delivery. Asymptomatic pregnant women with positive partners, as well as HIV-positive pregnant women, should be offered type-specific serologic testing.
