A baby with HIV cured is making national headlines this weekend, as the Huffington Post reported this Sunday, March 3, that a baby born with the AIDS virus now seems to have been cured, said scientists.
The health news headline that read “Baby born with HIV apparently cured, say experts” describes the case of a young Mississippi child — now two and a half years old — that has been off medication for over a year and continues to display no signs of the virus or infection.
The baby with HIV cured became a trending topic on search engines after medical specialists announced in Atlanta at a major AIDS meeting that the baby’s health and this “cure” could hold some very promising hopes and potential clues to find a way to eliminate the HIV infection in kids internationally in the future. This includes children in AIDS-stricken countries like Africa where many infants are unfortunately born with the virus.
"You could call this about as close to a cure, if not a cure, that we've seen," Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, who is familiar with the HIV research and findings, told The Associated Press.
A doctor gave this particular child a much faster and more concentrated treatment than normal, beginning a triple drug infusion within one day of the baby’s birth. This was administered, however, before official tests confirmed that the child was in fact infected with the virus, which may have made a difference, scientists say.
"I just felt like this baby was at higher-than-normal risk, and deserved our best shot," Dr. Hannah Gay, a pediatric HIV specialist at the University of Mississippi, said in an interview.
The immediate response seems to have nullified the virus in the baby’s blood before it was able to create any “hideouts” in the body. The baby with HIV cured is certainly promising news in the world of health and medicine, and further research is no doubt forthcoming in this special case.
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