Newly diagnosed herpes? Get out these messages. (Counseling Patients is Key).

WHISTLER, B.C. -- Nobody likes to talk about genital herpes, even when it is someone else's.

But talk is the most important service a physician can provide, because for most patients, finding out that they have genital herpes is a very traumatic event, Dr. David Patrick said at an update on viral infections sponsored by the University of British Columbia.

Physicians need not be intimidated, nor do they need to be psychiatrists.

"Counseling is not psychotherapy, it is really the empathetic provision of information and sources of information. Human learning does not happen all in that 5 minutes that you are sitting in the office with someone," said Dr. Patrick, director of communicable disease epidemiology for the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.

These are the messages patients need to receive, according to Dr. Patrick, who said he keeps a checklist with him to make sure he covers each one:

* You are not alone. Genital herpes is very common, so it should not be considered something that just happens to certain people. Worldwide, one in six persons has genital herpes.

* Your partner is not necessarily to blame. First presentations are more likely to represent reactivation of a latent infection than a new infection. That is because 80% of infections are not recognized at the time of initial infection due to mild or absent symptoms. Therefore, the patient's present partner may not have known they had genital herpes, or alternatively, the patient may not have gotten it from their present partner. "A lot of transmissions are innocent," Dr. Patrick said.