A baby has been cured of HIV in the US

A Mississippi baby has been declared "functionally cured" of HIV

By Genna Patterson

A baby that was born with HIV has been found to be seemingly cured of the disease according to The Irish Examiner. The baby, born to a mother with HIV, was given faster and stronger than normal treatment for the disease upon birth, and now two and a half years later shows no signs of infection. The mother was only diagnosed with HIV at the birth.

Specialists at an AIDS meeting in Atlanta Georgia announced the results of the baby who has been off medication for the last year. Doctors are careful to point out that this is only the second ‘cured’ case of HIV - the other being a man who received a risky bone marrow transplant from a rare donor who was immune to the disease.

The baby still has traces of the HIV virus genetic material in its body, and no guarantee is made for the child to stay healthy, but it offers hope to HIV and AIDS sufferers around the globe, including the many babies who are born with the disease. Approximately 300,000 babies were born with HIV in 2011, the majority being from developing countries.

The paediatric doctor, Hannah Gay, who administered the treatment to the baby said, "I just felt like this baby was at higher-than-normal risk, and deserved our best shot," as she gave the baby a three-drug infusion within 30 hours of birth. It may have been this fast-acting treatment that has made the difference, preventing the HIV in the blood from forming hideouts in the body.

Dr Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health said that, "You could call this about as close to a cure, if not a cure, that we’ve seen." Dr Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins Children’s Centre led an investigation into the case and is now planning a study to try to prove that, with more aggressive treatment of other high-risk babies, the virus can be ‘cured’.

Normally treatment can be given to a mother with HIV to prevent the baby from picking up the disease, but because the baby’s mother received no prenatal care, she was not diagnosed as HIV positive until advanced stages of the labour. Newborn babies with HIV are usually given low doses of medication, to prevent the virus taking hold.

Dr Gay’s aggressive treatment may be the key to curing babies in the future, although she said, "We can’t promise to cure babies who are infected. We can promise to prevent the vast majority of transmissions if the moms are tested during every pregnancy."

Dr Gay continues to treat and test the child every few months. She said, "I just check for the virus and keep praying that it stays gone."