Is HPV Contagious Forever? Most cases of HPV clear up on their own after one to two years, and you'll no longer be contagious once it leaves your system. However, the virus can remain dormant for years, and some people experience infections that stick around for much longer.
You're contagious for as long as you have the virus — regardless of whether or not you have symptoms. For example, even if your genital warts have disappeared, you can still spread the HPV that caused them if the virus is still in your body. Once your immune system destroys the virus, you're no longer contagious.
It's possible. In most cases, your immune system will eventually get rid of an HPV infection within 2 years. But HPV can stay in our bodies – sometimes without us knowing about it, as it is not detected with a test. This is called dormant or clinically insignificant HPV.
People with genital warts definitely can spread HPV. But even after the warts are gone, HPV might still be active in the body. That means it can spread to someone else through sex or close sexual contact and cause warts in that person.
Is there a cure? No. HPV is a chronic, lifelong infection. However, as many as one out of every three people with genital warts find that they go away on their own – usually within two years.
Warts are thought to be contagious for as long as they are present on your body. The virus is more likely to spread if the skin is wet, soft or has been in contact with a rough surface. Warts can also be spread to other parts of your own body.
In most cases (9 out of 10), HPV goes away on its own within two years without health problems. But when HPV does not go away, it can cause health problems like genital warts and cancer. Genital warts usually appear as a small bump or group of bumps in the genital area.
Anyone who has had sex can get HPV, even if it was only with only one person, but infections are more likely in people who have had many sex partners. Even if a person delays sexual activity until marriage, or only has one partner, they are still at risk of HPV infection if their partner has been exposed.
Depending on the type of HPV that you have, the virus can linger in your body for years. In most cases, your body can produce antibodies against the virus and clear the virus within one to two years. Most strains of HPV go away permanently without treatment.
Around 90% of HPV infections clear within 2 years. For a small number of women and people with a cervix, their immune system will not be able to get rid of HPV. This is called a persistent infection. A persistent HPV infection causes the cells of the cervix to change.
Several studies involving younger women indicate that type-specific HPV can be detected again after a long period of apparent clearance, but it has not been established whether type-specific HPV redetection is due to reactivation of a low-level persistent infection or the result of a new infection [6–9].
If you've been diagnosed with HPV, you can still lead a relatively normal life. However, you need to protect yourself and any other sexual partners you have as you do so: Use condoms: Using condoms when having sex is essential to reduce the risk of transmitting HPV.
Most studies of HPV persistence have defined persistence as the detection of the same HPV type at 2–3 consecutive visits, each 2–24 months apart [10–18].
Most cases of HPV infection tend to be cleared by the immune system without intervention 1–2 years post-exposure; it is thought that persistent infection is most likely due to a lack of HPV-specific T-cell immunity [74].
Most men who get HPV never have symptoms. The infection usually goes away by itself. But, if HPV does not go away, it can cause genital warts or certain kinds of cancer.
Previous research suggests that a key concern among individuals with other STIs, such as herpes and chlamydia, is telling a sexual partner. Unlike other STIs, there is no treatment for HPV, so it is not necessary to disclose HPV to current or previous sexual partners.
This myth is based on an overly simple view of how HPV can be transmitted. Yes, penile-vaginal sex can pass the virus along from one partner to another, but HPV can be passed through other forms of skin-to-skin contact as well.
Most sexually active couples share HPV until the immune response suppresses the infection. Partners who are sexually intimate only with each other are not likely to pass the same virus back and forth.
There is currently no cure for an existing HPV infection, but for most people it would be cleared by their own immune system and there are treatments available for the symptoms it can cause. You can also get the HPV vaccine to protect yourself against new infections of HPV which can cause genital warts or cancer.
The longer answer: Most people's immune systems clear HPV out of their bodies within one to three years. But if the virus lingers for a long time, it can become a part of your DNA, and then potentially cause cancer several decades later.
For 90 percent of women with HPV, the condition will clear up on its own within two years. Only a small number of women who have one of the HPV strains that cause cervical cancer will ever actually develop the disease.
Is HPV Contagious Forever? Most cases of HPV clear up on their own after one to two years, and you'll no longer be contagious once it leaves your system. However, the virus can remain dormant for years, and some people experience infections that stick around for much longer.
Time to recurrence
Of all women with at least one recurrence (n = 306), 44.6% experienced the recurrence within 12 weeks, 69.1% within six months and 82.9% within 1 year. In 8.1% of the study patients first recurrence was observed more than 3 years after primary treatment of genital warts.
Options include freezing (cryosurgery), laser, surgical removal, loop electrosurgical excision procedure (LEEP) and cold knife conization.
But women's risk for HPV is not over yet: There is sometimes a second peak around the age of menopause. Why? A study released early in 2013 of women 35 to 60 years old found that HPV in women at or after menopause may represent an infection acquired years ago.