HIV baby ‘cured’ by early drug treatment
In a potentially huge breakthrough for the treatment of Aids, US scientists say a two-year-old baby born with the HIV virus has remained healthy with no medication for a year after drug treatment.
Specialists say the announcement by US scientists, made at a major Aids meeting in Atlanta on Sunday, offers promising clues for efforts to eliminate HIV infection in children, especially in Aids-plagued countries where too many babies are born with the virus.
There is no guarantee the child from Mississippi will remain healthy, although sophisticated testing has uncovered just traces of the virus’ genetic material.
If the two-year-old girl remains healthy, it would mark only the world’s second reported cure.
A doctor gave the baby faster and stronger treatment than is usual, starting a three-drug infusion within 30 hours of birth. The treatment began even before tests confirmed the infant was infected and not just at risk from a mother whose HIV wasn’t diagnosed until she was in labour.
The early intervention appeared to knock out HIV in the baby’s blood before it could form hideouts in the body.
Those so-called reservoirs of dormant cells usually rapidly reinfect anyone who stops medication, said Dr Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins Children’s Centre.
‘Functionally cured’
She led the investigation that deemed the child “functionally cured,” meaning in long-term remission even if all traces of the virus have not been completely eradicated.
Dr Persaud’s team is planning a study to try to prove the success could be replicated with more aggressive treatment of other high-risk babies.
“You could call this about as close to a cure, if not a cure, that we’ve seen,” said Dr Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health
You could call this about as close to a cure, if not a cure, that we’ve seen. Dr Anthony Fauci, National Institutes of Health
He cautioned that no-one should stop anti-Aids drugs as a result of this case, but added that “it opens up a lot of doors” to research if other children can be helped.
About 300,000 children were born with HIV in 2011, mostly in developing countries where only about 60 per cent of infected pregnant women get treatment that can keep them from passing the virus to their babies.
In the US such births are very rare because HIV testing and treatment long have been part of prenatal care.
