A child born with HIV has been cured of the disease by doctors in Mississippi, the first documented case of its kind.
Details of the historic treatment were announced March 3 at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta.
The cured infant, now two and a half years old, needs no HIV medication, is unlikely to be infectious to others and has a normal life expectancy, doctors said. The name and sex of the child were withheld to protect the patient's identity, but it was revealed the child was born and lived in Mississippi state.
Dr. Hannah Gay, part of the medical team that treated the child at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, told the United Kingdom-based Guardian the case was the first instance of a "functional cure" for an HIV-infected child. A patient is considered functionally cured of HIV when standard testsfor the virus are negative, even though a small amount of the virus likely remains in his or her 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.
It was explained during the announcement that the child's mother was unaware she had HIV until after tests came back positive while she was in labor.
Doctors began treating the baby 30 hours after birth and decided to begin administering an unusual regimen of three antiretroviral drugs, given as liquids through a syringe.
Gay's medical team decided on the more aggressive treatments because the child's mother had not taken any HIV-related medicine during her pregnancy.
Blood drawn from the baby before treatment showed the child was in fact HIV-positive, so the doctors expected the child to take the virus drug them for life.
But, within a month after starting therapy, the level of HIV in the baby's blood fell so low, routine lab tests failed to detect it.
The child had no medication from about 18 months on, and did not see the doctors again for half a year.
At that point, Gay said "fully expected that the baby would have a high viral load."
But, after ordering a battery of tests, she was stunned to see that "all of the tests came back negative"
The medical team later concluded the child was cured because the treatment was so potent and was administered so soon after birth. It's believed the drugs the child received stopped the virus from replicating in short-lived, active immune cells --- and also blocked the infection of other, long-lived white blood cells, which can linger for years.
"We are certainly hoping that this approach could lead to the same outcome in many other high-risk babies," said Gay.