A 25-year-old man presented with multiple painful ulcers . On examination, the nodes arepainful,soft,matted together. The causative organism might be

chancroid caused by Haemophilus ducreyi may also present with multiple painful genital ulcers, they are differentiated from the ulcers of HSV by the presence of bubos. The nodes are painful, soft from the beginning, become matted together to form a unilocular suppurating mass, and often referred to as bubo. There are no vesicles here. Genital herpes is more often caused by HSV-2. Genital herpes is characterized by vesiculoulcerative lesions (grouped vesicles with clear fluid in them) of the penis of the male or of the cervix, vulva, vagina, and perineum of the female. Recurrences of genital herpetic infections are common and tend to be mild Chlamydia trachomatis causes non gonococcal urethritis and do not cause vesicular lesions. Treponema pallidum causes chancre. It is painless, relatively avascular, circumscribed, indurated ulcerated lesion. Reference: Ananthanarayan and Paniker&;s Textbook of Microbiology Tenth edition