Watch out rugby players and sumo wrestlers: The unsightly, cold sore-causing skin disease known as “scrumpox” or herpes gladiatorum—or, as athletes call it, “mat herpes”— is easily spread through close contact with broken skin, and may be coming to a field or mat near you.
A strain of mat herpes has already invaded the U.S.: As many as 20 to 40 percent of wrestlers in Division I of the National Collegiate Athletic Association have been infected with herpes gladiatorum.
Now, researchers at Tokyo University have studied how the virus spread in sumo wrestlers in Japan, and found that the virus is likely more pathogenic than previously thought, according to the October issue of the Journal of General Virology.
