Kanuka honey from New Zealand may be as effective as aciclovir in treating cold sores, with patients using the honey reporting a similar healing time, research shows.

In the New Zealand study, herpes labialis lesions took between eight and nine days to heal, whether they were treated with an ointment made of kanuka honey or aciclovir 5% cream.

The study was funded by Honeylab, the company that makes the kanuka honey ointment used in the research, and was published in the BMJ Open.

Kanuka honey comes from the kanuka tree and is from the same family as the manuka tree, which produces the better-known manuka honey.