Researchers: Toddler born with HIV now cured | WGN-TV

A two-year-old girl, who was born with HIV, has no trace of it now.

An HIV positive woman gave birth to the baby in rural Mississippi.

The mother had not received any prenatal HIV treatment, so doctors knew there was a good chance that the baby was infected.

?I drew tests just as they started those drugs, and two different types of tests showed me within the next couple of days that the baby was already infected,? said Dr. Hannah Gay.

That?s when they gave the baby high doses of three drugs right away.

That continued for about 15 months.

But then the doctor lost track of the mother, who admitted that she took the girl off the treatment.

She was off the drugs for up to 10 months, when tests found no signs of the virus.

?We think we can build upon that platform. What this case provided us is that we can use the currently FDA-approved drugs for treating infection in infants to really begin to replicate this finding,? said Dr. Deborah Persaud.

Researchers are crediting the results to the early start of the treatment.

They say this could one day help them cure other infected babies.

?We don?t really give treatment as early as this child received therapy, we wait to know whether the child is infected or not, and that can take sometimes up to 4 to 6 weeks to be able to identify an infected child. So this case is distinct because the therapy was started so early,? said Persaud.

Source: http://wgntv.com/2013/03/04/toddler-born-with-hiv-now-cured/

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