What we do:
The Herpes Viruses Association (registered charity 291657) helps to improve the lives of people struggling with herpes simplex by:
- Helping people to understand the genital herpes and put it into its proper perspective as a common skin complaint.
- Running four drop-in session per month: on Zoom and in London. Herpes support groups allow people to talk about this highly stigmatised condition with others who empathise.
- Providing leaflets on the most common herpes questions such as ‘How to protect my partner’, ‘Talking to a new partner’ and ‘Pregnancy and childbirth’. Subscribers can choose from 12 leaflets.
- Publishing monthly updates for our subscribers, including a quarterly journal SPHERE. This covers everything from research news to articles on stress management and our social events. See list of articles you can read in back copies of our magazine.
- Running trials to find out which complementary treatments have a useful effect.
- Publishing the results from our questionnaires about the experience of living with herpes simplex.
- Supporting and encouraging local groups and meetings around the country.
- Training and supporting the volunteers who answer helpline calls.
- Providing a speaker for the NHS sexual health clinics’ training sessions “Helping you to Help your Patients with Herpes” for staff. Send us an email to book a session.
- More details on how we help professionals on the professional page.
What we do at the Herpes Viruses Association (HVA) – watch on YouTube
On a wider front the Herpes Viruses Association is also concerned with:
- providing information and advice to those who have symptoms of herpes simplex, the public and the medical profession.
- encouraging a calmer, less hysterical approach to what is usually a minor skin condition.
- correcting misleading coverage of herpes simplex in the media.
- promoting a more accurate public awareness of the condition;
- supporting the NHS sexual health services by taking on the counselling roles for patients – many clinics given patients the 0345 123 2305 helpline number and the wwwherpes.org.uk website address;
- working with other organisations to reduce the stigma surrounding all STIs and promote a more mature approach to sexual health.
Volunteers:
- answer the helpline / advice line.
- organise local groups and social events – relaxed, informal get-togethers which have been attended by thousands of people over the years. Members who attend find them supportive, informative and enjoyable.
- pilot read the materials we provide, in line with The Information Standard protocol.
- help us to improve our website and other services – we need more young people on our Executive Management Committee – and more BAME members – and more men!
We need more people for these roles. As well, we’d love volunteers to fundraise and to help in the London office with admin tasks. (Both of these can be part-time.) Get in touch: [email protected].
How We Ensure Our Information Is Reliable
Staff at the Herpes Viruses Association (HVA) write this website – see ‘Meet the team’ below. Much of the advice and information offered is based on the Guideline 2024 published by the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH). This is written by the specialists to inform all UK doctors.
Staff also monitor worldwide research into treatments and vaccines, infection rates, and studies on the value of complementary therapies. Since 1985, they have been providing evidence-based information for a condition that has been, and continues to be, comprehensively misrepresented by most other sources.
In August 2011, the HVA received accreditation from the Information Standard. This is a ‘kite-mark’ system run by the NHS. Organisations which provide health information have to show that they have a carefully evaluated procedure. This ensures that they provide evidence-based and unbiased information. Also, the leaflet or web page must be pilot-tested on a group of readers to check that the language used can be easily understood. Finally, the finished leaflet or webpage must be validated by a suitably qualified doctor. You will see the Information Standard logo on various pages of this website.
Although the Information Standard has now closed, the HVA continues to use this protocol to create its “information products.”
The doctors of the “Special Interest Panel for Herpes Simplex Virus” of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV support our work. We consult them on medical/clinical matters where necessary. The HVA is impartial and totally independent of all manufacturers of both drug treatments and complementary therapies.
We update the News page often, maybe once a month or so. And read our blog posts.
Feedback
You can send any compliments, complaints or suggestions to us: by email at [email protected] or by post to HVA, 41 North Road, London N7 9DP.
We have formal procedures for complaints in place and can send you these if required.
Annual Review 2026
Read the Annual Review of our activities, provided by our trustees, for the year ending 31 March 2026.
Meet the team
Marian Nicholson MBE | Director
Marian Nicholson, the HVA’s director since 1995, received an MBE (Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the King’s Birthday Honours list in June 2024. She says “I see it primarily as an official and long overdue recognition of the importance of the HVA and the work we do to reassure and inform patients.”
Marian has appeared in magazines, on TV and has given radio interviews. She has personal experience of herpes simplex since 1981. Marian edits and co-writes the HVA’s quarterly journal, Sphere (see an archived copy) and all information for patients. She trains and supports our volunteers.
Marian represents the charity on the Herpes Simplex Virus Advisory Panel – a sub-group of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV (BASHH). This panel writes the herpes simplex guidelines for doctors.
She has given talks at various medical conferences including BASHH, IUSTI (International Union against STIs) and BAD (British Association of Dermatologists). She has had articles published in various medical journals including STI and AIDS (Nov 2020).
Marian gives talks to staff at sexual health clinics around the country: all clinics can request a training session with the PowerPoint presentation, “Helping you to help your patients with herpes”. Send us an email.
She has been a guest on many TV and radio shows, talking about her personal experience and explaining the creation of the stigma that accompanies ‘cold sores on the genitals’.
Cameron Poole | Deputy Director
Cameron joined the HVA as deputy director in July 2020, to run the day to day duties of bookkeeping, taking helpline calls and running of the online shop as well as representing the HVA at various medical and parliamentary meetings and events. His confident, compassionate and reassuring tone has helped hundreds of callers feel reassured following their diagnosis and his creative skills have contributed to everything from Sphere magazine to the HVA’s social media presence.
His skills as a professional video editor have come in very useful and in the summer of 2022 he produced our first video for doctors on how to speak to patients about herpes simplex, featuring Marian Nicholson, Nigel Scott and himself. See video here.
He is passionate about educating those affected by the virus as well as the general public.
“The fear, shame and ridicule associated with the word ‘herpes’ is completely unwarranted and is a result, not of the virus itself, but of greed, stigma, scaremongering and litigious thinking – societal diseases we actually should be worried, ashamed and embarrassed about, yet allow to continue because nobody addresses it.”
– August 2022.
Nigel Scott | Trustee & Adviser on Herpes and the Law
Nigel Scott worked for the HVA as our information/policy officer. He retired in July 2020 after over 22 years of continuous service. He has now become one of the charity’s trustees.
Nigel’s contribution to our literature and lobbying power has been considerable and his reassuring advice to thousands of callers and visitors will not be forgotten. We are grateful that he remains involved in our work.
As our Information Officer, he represented the HVA at meetings of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Sexual and Reproductive Health and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Skin. In addition, he worked with other organisations that aim to improve sexual health services for patients.
Nigel will continue to give advice on potential legal cases involving herpes simplex transmission. He liaises with patients, lawyers and other sexual health organisations when these arise. Every potential case that the HVA has been involved with, has never gone to trial.
Alongside Marian Nicholson, he was responsible for creating and editing the HVA’s information resources online and on paper, including “Herpes Simplex – The Guide” as well as the charity’s quarterly journal. His article on the origins of the herpes stigma, written for Spiked online, has been widely cited across the internet.
How you can help
We need your help to continue to offer this helpful website. Help us with a donation. (We rely totally on donations/subscriptions.)
One volunteer is Alice:
Alice is the hostess at some London meetings. She has had this for 6 years ago having got it when she was 37. She’s been in and out of the dating scene since then so have plenty of experience of talking to partners about this. She’s a very active and actually got into hiking through HVA in a way! (If you come, you can ask her to explain that.) Like all of our hosts and volunteers, she’s friendly and non-judgemental so feel free to come along and have a chat and ask questions.
We need volunteers also – answering helpline calls (from their homes), hosting meetings, and helping part-time at the office with administration tasks, fundraising, social media programmes, or with SEO and much more… Get in touch: [email protected].
Our Patrons
Five of them are distinguished doctors and professors specialising in sexual health medicine:
- Professor Michael W. Adler CBE MD FRCP FFCM
- Dr David Barlow MA BM FRCP
- Professor Colm O’Mahony MD FRCP BSc DIPVen.
- Dr Raj Patel FRCP
- Professor Simon Barton MD FRCOG FRCPEd FRCP
Our sixth patron is doctor, broadcaster and journalist Dr Phil Hammond, who helps us communicate with the wider public:
- Dr Phil Hammond MB BChir MRCGP
The HVA’s Executive Management Committee has ten members and operates independently of pharmaceutical companies and other commercial interests.
The HVA: How It All Began
In 1981, people with herpes simplex got together, via adverts in Spare Rib magazine, to share information and to help each other as a response to the many scary stories about herpes simplex in the press. The founders created the Herpes Viruses Association as a registered charity no. 291657 on 26-4-1985. We set up an office in the Omnibus Centre and we now employ two staff. About eight volunteers help us by hosting meetings, answering the helpline or assisting in the office. Over the years, we have dealt with over 100,000 enquiries from patients and health professionals.
In order that we can continue to offer our website (352,000 visitors in 2025), the long-standing helpline and information leaflets we rely on your donations and subscriptions.
If this website has helped you, then please subscribe or send us a donation by post (HVA, 41 North Rd, N7 9DP) or on line – just as you would to any cause that you thought does a good job. Thank you.
Contact us
[email protected] for short answers to your questions, or call our helpline on 0345 123 2305. Calls to 0345 numbers are charged at standard landline rates and are usually included in call packages.
Our Independence
In order to show our independence, the Herpes Viruses Association needs to be transparent and impartial in its relations with funders/supporters. All HVA’s activities are funded from:
- Unrestricted donations
- Subscriptions
- Charitable grants
- Sales of “Herpes simplex – the guide” to individuals and clinics
- Sales of therapeutic materials
- Providing training regarding herpes simplex to NHS staff and the public. Send email to [email protected]
We do not link our activities to commercial marketing or public relations campaigns except where this is relevant and in the interests of our service users.
Information Standards and Disclaimer
The Herpes Viruses Association provides evidence-based information about herpes viruses, particularly herpes simplex (including genital herpes), shingles and post-herpetic neuralgia. Our information is intended to improve understanding of these conditions and does not replace individual medical advice from a doctor or other healthcare professional.
Our content reflects the medical evidence and expert opinion available at the time of publication and is reviewed and updated where appropriate. While every effort is made to ensure that our information is accurate and reliable, medical guidance can change and other reputable authorities may differ in their recommendations on particular points.
The Herpes Viruses Association cannot accept responsibility for decisions made solely on the basis of information provided on this website, or for the content or availability of external websites to which we link.
Information Standard
The HVA was previously certified under the Information Standard, a quality-assurance programme for health and care information. Although the programme has now ended, we continue to follow its established principles and procedures to maintain the quality and reliability of the information we provide.
User-generated content on our blog is not produced or reviewed under these standards and is therefore excluded.
When was this website last updated?
We last updated this site on 21-8-2026.
