Table 2.

Clinical relevance of herpesviruses.

Virus	Clinical manifestations and estimates (references)
Herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV1)/HHV1	Blindness, dermatitis, gum diseases, sores in the mouth, nose and genitals, newborn fatal encephalitis (Imbronito et al., 2008; Looker et al., 2017; Marcocci et al., 2020). Considered causative factor of sporadic Alzheimer disease (Cairns et al., 2020). In 2016, the WHO (World Health Organization, 2020) estimated that about 67% of the world’s population below 49 years old had HSV1 infection.
Varicella zoster virus (VZV)/HHV3	Primary infection causes chicken pox/varicella and infectious shingles upon reactivation; during 2008–2011, VZV mortality rate in the US population was estimated to be 0.05 per million, representing an 87% decrease in comparison to prevaccine years (Johnson and Levin, 2020).
Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV)/HVV5	Worldwide seroprevalence of 66%–90% (Zuhair et al., 2019). It affects transplants’ recipients (Schottstedt et al., 2010; Meesing and Razonable, 2018) and is a major cause of congenital disability in children (Davis et al., 2017; Emery and Lazzarotto, 2017).
Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)/HVV4	Mononucleosis and derived lymphomas caused at least 142,000 deaths worldwide in 2010 (Khan and Hashim, 2014; Martinez and Krams, 2017) and a chronic population deterioration resulting from EBV-related autoimmune diseases (Draborg et al., 2016; Balandraud and Roudier, 2018; Trier et al., 2018).
Kaposi’s sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV)/HVV8	KSHV associated tumorigenesis is responsible for around 55% mortality in South African infected children (Dow et al., 2014), and nearly 20% of deaths in seropositive blood transfusions (Ablashi et al., 2002; Operskalski, 2012).