A baby girl who was born with HIV has been cured after very early treatment with
standard drug therapy, US researchers have said, in a potentially groundbreaking
case that could help eradicate HIV infection in its youngest
victims.
Specialists made the announcement on Sunday at a major AIDS
meeting in the US city of Atlanta.
"This is a proof of concept that HIV
can be potentially curable in infants," said Dr. Deborah Persaud, a virologist
at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, who presented the findings. Read more
below.
The baby girl was born in a rural hospital in the
state of Mississippi and her mother had just tested positive for HIV
infection.
A team of doctors at the University of Mississippi Medical
Centre in Jackson then put the infant on a cocktail of three standard
HIV-fighting drugs when she was just 30 hours old.
That fast action
apparently knocked out the HIV in the baby's blood before it could form
reservoirs in the body.
The new findings could be especially critical for
AIDS-plagued African countries where many babies are born with the virus,
researchers said.
"You could call this about as close to a cure, if not a
cure, that we've seen,'' Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health,
who is familiar with the findings, told The Associated Press.
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