It’s been a long time coming, but doctors have announced that for the first time ever, a baby has been cured of H.I.V. This huge development will lead to an increased understanding among doctors and the entire scientific community about the H.I.V. infection that causes AIDS, and could reduce the number of children who have to live with this disease.
The infant, a 2 ½ year old girl from Mississippi, has a unique story and went through an unusual series of events which led to her cure. The baby’s mother tested positive for H.I.V while she was pregnant with the child, but due to the short amount of time between arriving at the hospital and giving birth, she received no prenatal care. The child contracted H.I.V at birth without any therapy to help prevent getting infected with H.I.V. while she was in the womb, but the day after she was born doctors began administering anti-AIDS therapy, according to news reports.
Although babies are now rarely born with H.I.V. thanks to prenatal treatments, once children are born with the disease they are usually kept on medication their entire life. However, in the case of the cured infant, she and her mother missed several treatments and appointments when the child was about 18-months old. This factor makes the child’s story even more unique.
Five months later, the child and the mother returned to the hospital after having no treatments during that time. Doctors expected the tests to show high levels of H.I.V, but instead they found a toddler who appeared to be H.I.V-free. According to the researchers, the disease was “undetectable,” and even now, 10 months after stopping medication and treatments, the child remains H.I.V free, based on current tests.
Due to the unusual circumstances of the child’s treatment regime and prenatal care it is hard to say that doctors have indeed found a cure, but this is certainly the start of progress. Doctors now believe that if children are born with H.I.V. that treatment soon after birth could protect babies from the disease. And although this is only one case of success, doctors believe it is a convincing case that could lead to good progress in the future.
There have been three other success stories of adults being cured of H.I.V. The first was Timothy Brown, a middle-aged man diagnosed with leukemia who received a bone-marrow transplant from a donor who was genetically resistant to H.I.V. But this case with the cured child brings attention to H.I.V. in infants and how a newborn’s immune system differs from an adult’s immune system. It is a success for doctors and those who are affected by this disease, and it has brought much hope to the community of people fighting to find a cure.