For the first time in history doctors say they have been able to cure a baby who was born with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
According to the WSJ, this marks only the second documented case of a patient being cured of HIV. The first was an adult Berlin man who was cured as a result of a 2007 bone-marrow transplant.
On Sunday researchers announced the news at a major AIDS conference in Atlanta. Hannah Gay, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, told USA Today, “I’m sort of holding my breath that this child’s virus doesn’t come back in the future."
Gay helped treat the 2 1/2 year-old Mississippi girl, who was started on an aggressive regimen of drugs just 30 hours after her birth. Lat year the baby girl's mother stopped her daughter's treatment, and doctors discovered that the virus was undetectable even without drugs, which normally HIV patients must take for the rest of their lives.
The girl now needs no medication for HIV and likely will not infect others, according to doctors.
“I’m certainly very hopeful that it will produce studies that will show us a way to cure other babies in the future,” Gay said.
Doctors are not exactly clear why the treatment was effective, but the case raised hopes for the millions of other people living with the virus.
However, researchers say since this case is just one patient, a baby, their findings might not help people who contracted HIV as an adult.
Over the past twenty years in developed countries, the number of babies who are born with HIV has fallen dramatically due to better drugs and prevention plans.
However, the problem remains high in developing countries.
Comments