Thanks for providing this service. It's so nice to be able to ask questions and get answers.

I'm wondering about how people's eyes become infected with herpes. My initial question is how a herpes infection is transferred to the eye?

If you had a herpes infection in your mouth or on your genitals, could you transfer the infection to your eye if you touched a sore and then unwittingly touched or rubbed your eye?

Could you transfer an infection from your mouth to your eye when brushing teeth if saliva and toothpaste was flying into the eye? If this is possible, would you have to have current outbreak in or around your mouth to transfer the infection to your eye? Or, could you transfer the infection without sores being present?

Could you get herpes in your eye from someone else who has oral herpes spitting directly into your eye during conversation or something? If this is possible, would they have to have sores present to transmit the infection? If you can't get herpes in your eye from someone spitting into your eye during conversation or some other similar scenario, would the person literally have to kiss or lick your eye to transmit the infection?

Thanks for the information! It is very helpful.

If someone with a brand new herpes infection could transfer it from one part of their body to another, could you contract herpes from someone if they touched a sore and then touched you, like when shaking hands or through some other instance of casual contact?

Or, is the reason someone with a brand new infection could potentially transfer the same type of virus to another area of their body, say mouth to eye or genitals to mouth, because during a brand new infection their immune system is weakened and less capable of fending off the location transfer?