Doctors May Have Found The Cure For HIV
March 5, 2013 2 Comments
US Doctor Cures Child Born with HIV
Mississippi doctors make medical history made with first ‘functional cure’ of unnamed two-year-old born with the HIV virus who now needs no medication.
Dr. Hannah Gay
Doctors in the US have made medical history by effectively curing a child born with HIV, the first time such a case has been documented. The infant, who is now two and a half, needs no medication for HIV, has a normal life expectancy and is highly unlikely to be infectious to others, doctors believe.
Dr Hannah Gay, who cared for the child at the University of Mississippi medical centre, told the Guardian the case amounted to the first “functional cure” of an HIV-infected child. A patient is functionally cured of HIV when standard tests are negative for the virus, but it is likely that a tiny amount remains in their body.
“Now, after at least one year of taking no medicine, this child’s blood remains free of virus even on the most sensitive tests available,” Gay said.
Listen to Doctor Hannah Gay explain the process
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I am quite amazed on this post. HIV is really a scary disease as until today there is no proven cure and treatment for it, but yet a child born with HIV was treated. I guess early diagnosis really helps in dealing the problem immediately. I hope time will come that there would be a treatment for HIV and also to cancer.
Skeptics said that this story of the cure child is not conclusive. They say that the girl – although at high risk for contracting the virus from her mother – was not actually infected herself. This story shows no actual proof that the baby girl was indeed born with the virus. On the other hand it mentions that the child, being at high risk of infection, was placed on treatment even before laboratory investigations had been done. That being said, doctors agree that the child was most likely infected, so it’s still a story of hope