How do warts multiply and spread?

This lesson is part of the WARTES HPV Masterclass. Preview: the first part of the narration.

You removed hair from your genital area and noticed that some spots were bleeding, or you cut a small bump without knowing what it was. A few weeks later, you noticed many new warts in that area. Some are side by side, and some seem to line up along a line.

So how did this happen? One possible reason is something we call autoinoculation. Autoinoculation means carrying an infection from one part of your own body to another, where it starts a new infection. HPV settles in the basal layer, the deepest cell layer of the skin's surface.

It does not go deeper, into the layer below where the blood vessels and immune cells are. This is how it hides from immune cells. Because the virus does not enter the bloodstream, the immune system does not easily notice it.

That is why the body often makes no antibodies, or very few, against HPV.

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