First Ever Documented Case of Child Cured by HIV

Chemicist

Read more: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0303172640.htm

Greg Bernhardt

Great news! How different is curing a person born with HIV than a person who later in life contracted HIV?

Chemicist

I'm not skilled enough in the field to know. :/

SW VandeCarr

In this case, antiretroviral treatment was started on the first day of postnatal life, likely before reservoirs of virus could be established. In the typical adult case, the infection has usually been active for some time before treatment is started. This provides the opportunity for HIV to establish reservoirs in lymphatic tissue , bone marrow, the genitourinary tract and sometimes, the brain. In such tissues, the virus may remain latent for years. In most adult cases, the gradual reduction of the viral load, as a result of treatment, can take the better part of a lifetime.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/780214

http://aidsresearch.org/cure-researc...hiv-reservoirs

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10608788

Chemicist

Interesting! Thanks!

StrayCatalyst

To my understanding, this "cure" only applies to recent infections - but it's still a huge leap forward, and offers hope of an eventual cure (or vaccine?) for the rest of the people afflicted with this horrible condition.

DiracPool

I remember in 1985 when Rock Hudson was diagnosed with AIDS that they said they would almost certainly have a vaccine within 5 years and a cure within 10. Almost 30 years later, they have neither, and they are still talking the same rap.

I hope it's all true but I stopped getting excited about these things a long time ago. At least they have the retrovirals.

mazinse

Yeah vaccines for RNA viruses in general are pretty tough to make because the high mutation rate.