SCIENCE / MEDICINE : Herpes Drug Treats Chickenpox

A drug used to treat genital herpes has been found to speed up children’s recovery from chickenpox, a University of Minnesota study says. Acyclovir reduced the number of itchy blisters and shortened by a day the normal five-day course of chickenpox in 50 Twin Cities children who received the drug, according to a report in this month’s Journal of Pediatrics.

Acyclovir is “a safe and effective treatment” for the illness, which almost every American gets sometime during childhood, said Dr. Henry Balfour, the pediatrician who headed the study.

Balfour said the finding is important because most complications develop near the end of a typical five-day infection.

He said some doctors may delay prescribing acyclovir until results of a larger, 10-city study are released, probably later this year.

Other doctors may limit the use of acyclovir to youngsters 11 and older, who tend to have the most severe cases of chickenpox, Balfour said. But he predicted that its use eventually will be widespread.