Herpes type 2 infection with unusual generalised manifestations and delayed diagnosis in an adult male.

A case of severe generalised herpes simplex type 2 infection is described in an adult male who had known exposure to herpes. The patient first complained of headache, fever and neurological symptoms, and three to six days later of conjunctivitis, severe pharyngitis, arthralgia and vesicular lesions about the body. During the first 14 days of illness, including three in hospital, the patient was diagnosed as having infection with varicella virus, vesicular stomatitis virus, or hand-foot-and-mouth disease virus. The diagnosis of infection with herpesvirus was not considered until herpesvirus was visualised in vesicular fluid by electron microscopy six weeks after onset. HSV-2 was then repeatedly isolated from vesicular fluids over the next four years. Detailed serological tests on the patient's sequential serum samples demonstrated a specific and continued response to HSV-2. He possibly acquired the virus iatrogenically, either by oral droplet transmission into or finger contamination of a PPD injection site, from the nurse who administered the injection and then palpated the site.