First time a baby has been cured of HIV
HIV or the human immunodeficiency virus, has been known to be one of those incurable diseases. But in ground breaking news, researchers in Washington have said that a baby born with the virus has been cured. This development could pave the way for improved and more effective treatment of babies born with the virus.
Functional but not complete cure
Yet the researchers were quick to point out that this was a ‘functional’ cure and not a complete cure. This is due to the fact that the virus is still in the body and not completely wiped out. Still, its presence is reduced to a level low enough for the body to control without the use of standard and prolonged drug treatment.
The accidental treatment
The baby girl was given commonly available antiretroviral drugs when doctors ascertained that her mother was HIV positive. According to CNN, doctors had given her high doses of three antiretroviral drugs within 30 hours of her birth in hopes of controlling the virus.
In normal circumstances where a new born is suspected to have contracted the virus from their mother, doctors usually administer smaller doses of the drugs until results from an HIV blood test is available at six weeks old.
According to Dr Hannah Gay, a paediatric HIV specialist at the University of Mississippi Medical Centre and one of the doctors who treated the girl told CNN, that it was the timing of intervention — before the baby’s HIV diagnosis – that made the difference and may deserve “more emphasis than the particular drugs or number of drugs used.”
Came back positive
The baby girl’s blood test came back positive for HIV, yet tests done later showed the virus in the baby’s blood continued to decrease and reached undetectable levels within 29 days of the initial treatment. The child remained on the antiretroviral drugs for another 15 months and according to researchers there is currently no evidence of HIV in the child’s blood.
Breakthrough treatment?
Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga, an immunologist at the University of Massachusetts called the findings a breakthrough as, “This is the very first case in which we’ve conclusively been able to document that the baby was infected and then after a period of treatment has been able to go off treatment without viral rebound.”
The finding was announced at the 2013 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta and should facilitate development on how high-risk newborns are treated for HIV.
Prevention is still better than cure
This finding is good news in the medical field, however there is as yet no sustainable proof that the early institution of antiretroviral drugs will result in the same outcome. Thus it is important for mothers to know preventive measures when it comes to HIV.
According to Avert.org, a woman who is HIV positive has a 15-30 percent chance of passing the virus to her unborn baby if she is not taking any drugs or treatment for the condition. And up to 20 percent of babies can also get infected during breastfeeding.
Thus, what is imperative here is to get tested for HIV before you start a family as it can be assumed that the cases of mother to baby transmission usually happen when the mothers are unaware that they are HIV positive.
The treatment of HIV in pregnant woman include taking antiviral drugs during the course of pregnancy. This continued course of treatment together with other interventions such as formula feeding and even birth through Caesarean section can cut the risk of transmission to as low as two percent!
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