Baby With H.I.V. Is Reported Cured

The baby girl was born in 2010 to an HIV positive to a Mississippi
mother, who was only diagnosed HIV+ just before giving birth, the
Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta was
told yesterday.

As the mother had not received prevention of mother to child
anti-retroviral therapy, the baby's doctor Hannah Gay, from the
University of Mississippi, put the infant on triple dose ARV therapy.

This is a combination of three different anti-retrovirals.

The baby was treated when it was only 30 hours old and remained on
ARVs until she was 18 months old.

When the doctor retested the child at the age of two, she tested negative.

The little girl's viral load for HIV has remained undetectable for the
past six months, meaning the HIV virus is not replicating, even though
the toddler is not on medication.

This is known as a functional cure.

Dr Francesca Conradie, president of the HIV Clinicians Society in
South Africa, said: "What the cure of the baby shows us is that if the
HI virus is stopped through medication before getting into a person's
genes, a person can be cured".

But this cannot be done with adults, as it is not possible to know
when exactly an adult becomes infected with HIV and then treat them
immediately afterwards, she said.