It’s a miracle! Doctors in the US have effectively cured a two and a half year-old child born with HIV.
The doctors believe that the child has no need for medication and should have a normal life expectancy as any other healthy child. Furthermore, the child is also unlikely to be infectious too.
Medical staff and scientists are unable to justify the effectiveness of the treatment, but this has certainly raised hopes that the therapy might ultimately help doctors eradicate the virus among newborns.
Dr Hannah Gay of University of Mississippi, told sources 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, however it is likely that tiny amounts of the virus remains in the body. Gay states that the child’s blood remains virus free even on the most sensitive tests for at least one year of taking no medicine.
“We expect this baby has great chances for a long, healthy life. We are certainly hoping that this approach could lead to the same outcome in many other high-risk babies,” she added.
Gay pressed that prevention is the most reliable way to prevent babies from contracting the virus. “Prevention really is the best cure, and we already have proven strategies that can prevent 98% of newborn infections by identifying and treating HIV-positive women”.
Source: The Guardian
