16-05-2025
Doctors say genital herpes under-reported due to shame and stigma
Growing up in regional Queensland, Jasmyn Gaggiano was relatively naive when it came to sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
It was not something she was taught about at school, or by her parents.
So it came as a shock for Ms Gaggiano, now 23, when she was diagnosed with genital herpes in the months after becoming sexually active as a teenager.
A nurse was the first to tell her it could be herpes after her symptoms left her unable to get out of bed.
"I couldn't go to the toilet, I struggled to move — it was horrible," she said.
It was her nonna, who she was staying with at the time, who decided she needed to go to hospital.
"[The nurse] looked at it and she said, 'Look, I'm going to be honest with you … I think this is genital herpes,'" Ms Gaggiano said.
"And I said, 'What's herpes?'"
When tests confirmed genital herpes, otherwise known as HSV-2, Ms Gaggiano said she was initially not bothered.
"I was like, 'Well, I don't need to tell anyone. I've got a boyfriend,'" she said.
"And then we broke up and it sort of just hit me like a truck ... I was like, 'I'm going to have to tell people now.'"
Ms Gaggiano said feelings of shame and isolation quickly set in.
"I thought, 'Everyone's going to find out. No-one's going to want to be friends with me. No-one's going to ever want to love me,'" she said.
It took Ms Gaggiano two years to feel confident to talk to someone other than her mum and nonna about her diagnosis.
During that time, she even moved to a school in a different town.
"I lived with that secret for a few years until I turned 17 or 18 and I had a chat with my friend [who] confided in me that she had it too," she said.
After speaking out, Ms Gaggiano felt empowered to start posting about her experience online at the age of 18.
"I really wanted to put a post out there and just tell everyone," she said.
"I felt like I had my control ripped away from me … like I didn't choose to get it."
Since sharing her story, more than 200 people have contacted her to share their own experiences.
Queensland Health Department data suggests about one in eight sexually active Australians have genital herpes.
But according to National Association of Specialist Obstetricians and Gynaecologists president, Gino Pecoraro, it could be more common.
"It's hard to get an accurate incidence rate because a lot of people just suffer in silence and don't necessarily go and get it diagnosed or let people know that they've got it because of a stigma associated with it," Dr Pecoraro said.
Common symptoms include:
Genital herpes is described as one of the most common STIs and can be caused by herpes simplex virus (HSV) type 1 or 2.
The more common HSV-1, or cold sores, can lead to genital herpes through oral sex.
Dr Pecoraro said transmission could occur in a number of other ways, including from people who were asymptomatic or it could be passed on to a baby during pregnancy.
At first, Ms Gaggiano said it was "daunting" to inform potential partners about her genital herpes diagnosis.
But that changed when she realised "everybody deserves a choice".
Ms Gaggiano said she managed her symptoms by visiting her GP for medication if an outbreak occurred, which she said was thankfully rare.
She said she hoped the more she and others talked about genital herpes, the more normalised it would become.
"It's just a massive cycle and it won't stop until we talk about it and educate ourselves," Ms Gaggiano said.
