A baby from Mississippi was born infected with HIV but doctors seem to have cured her of HIV – a first in medical history - after very aggressive treatments.
The doctors however term the baby's recovery as "remission" since they are not yet a hundred percent certain that the HIV will not recur in her system. A new study sponsored by the government will soon be conducted by international scientists this January with the objective to try to reproduce the results of aggressive treatment in babies.
The HIV or Human Immunodeficiency Virus causes AIDS (Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome) in which a person infected has a worsening disintegration of the immune system while the disease progresses. It also allows infectious diseases and cancers to be easily contracted in the patient's system.
Although some doctors do not believe that the baby was indeed infected with the virus, the scientists involved in the study stated in their report that she was infected while inside her mother's womb. Her treatment was done aggressively and after long months, she seemed to have recovered from the infection.
The patient is now three years old and has stopped taking medications 18 months ago. Since then she showed no indications of having the disease.
HIV has been thought to be a permanent condition which only worsens over time and in the end will take the life of the patient infected with it. With this new case, doctors are refraining from calling it a cure because they do not have enough evidence of the permanence of the treatment and the time window to tell whether a patient is free from HIV.
"We want to be very cautious here. We're calling it remission because we'd like to observe the child for a longer time and be absolutely sure there's no rebound," Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga told USA Today. Luzuriaga is a University of Massachusetts AIDS expert who took care of the patient.
Several tests were also done on the little girl at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The agency's director Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is also the government's top AIDS scientist, believes that the baby at the moment is free from the HIV infection.
The study was published in the Oct. 23 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.
