A baby with HIV is cured

March 4, 2013
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This Sunday, U.S. medical team announced has cured a baby with HIV through a standard drug cocktail administered at birth.

It was presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta (USA), opening the door to a new avenue to eradicate HIV infection.

The patient was born with HIV in Mississippi, and was treated at birth at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson, and was under the care of Dr. Hannah Gay, pediatric HIV specialist, after his mother had not received no prenatal HIV treatment.

According to the doctor: “It is normal in a pregnancy to treat HIV-infected mother to reduce the risk of transmission to her child, but the mother did not know she was infected, which is learned after birth the baby who was treated 30 hours after knowing the risk of infection.”

The researchers explain that “early use of antiviral therapy was effective in curing the baby by attacking cells known as viral reservoirs, which are inactive and out of reach of standard drugs.”

“These deposits revive HIV infection in patients who stop therapy and are the reason that most people with HIV need lifelong treatment to keep the infection under control.”

“After starting with retroviral treatment, the baby’s immune system responded satisfactorily, and tests showed that virus levels were undetectable decrease until 29 days after birth. The baby received regular treatment for 18 months, but then stopped going to the visit for 10 months by decision of the mother.”

“When she returned to the doctor’s Gay, he noted that there had not detectable HIV in standard tests of blood, the same happened in specific antibody tests for HIV, which is the standard clinical indicator of infection”.