OK WHAT. Child cured of HIV.

[Nihilego]

YEP.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130303172640.htm

Dr. Persaud, an amfAR grantee, detailed the case of a two-year-old child in Mississippi diagnosed with HIV at birth and immediately put on antiretroviral therapy. At 18 months, the child ceased taking antiretrovirals and was lost to follow-up. When brought back into care at 23 months, despite being off treatment for five months, the child was found to have an undetectable viral load. A battery of subsequent highly sensitive tests confirmed the absence of HIV.

Confirmation of the cure was made possible by a grant the Foundation awarded to Dr. Persaud and Dr. Katherine Luzuriaga of the University of Massachusetts in September 2012. The grant allowed Drs. Persaud and Luzuriaga to establish a research collaboratory to explore and document possible pediatric HIV cure cases. The collaboratory includes renowned researchers Drs. Stephen Spector and Doug Richman at the University of California, San Diego; Dr. Frank Maldarelli at the National Cancer Institute; and Dr. Tae-Wook Chun at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

"The child's pediatrician in Mississippi was aware of the work we were doing, and quickly notified our team as soon as this young patient's case came to her attention," said Dr. Rowena Johnston, amfAR vice president and director of research. "Because the collaboratory was already in place, the researchers were able to mobilize immediately and perform the tests necessary to determine if this was in fact a case of a child being cured."

According to Dr. Persaud, comprehensive tests have confirmed beyond doubt that both mother and child were HIV positive when the child was born, and today no signs of HIV infection in the child can be detected by the most sensitive means available.

...

Child cured of HIV. Guys.

 

[Mark Kamill]

So wait, this means HIV cure is coming? Cause if so, that's a huge, HUGE deal. Not curing advanced stages of Aids big, but prevention to stop that ever happening is the next best thing.

 

[Nihilego]

It means an HIV cure in children may be coming or indeed, may have been here a long time without us knowing. This doesn't mean much just yet for adults infected with HIV, but it's a real start. It's particularly interesting to me since it'll unfold in two ways; one of them, the obvious fact that children born with HIV can be cured, and the other examining the differences between the immune systems of infants and adults. I don't think it's a co-incidence that a child this young was the first to be cured, although we've not exactly a large sample size here.

 

[Mark Kamill]

The infant and adult difference did not occur to me, that indeed is quite big. If the difference is apparent, I really would like to know what is it in an infant that would allow the HIV strain to be erased and not an adult, if this treatment only is for infants.

 

[Sir Codin]

This also opens up opportunities for better understanding of how HIV affects individuals regardless of age.

The article mentioned another man being cured in a different way, so it looks like it might be possible to cure HIV in different ways depending on what factors are present.

 

[EJ]

Wow that's amazing. Maybe this cure takes advantage of the fact that a child's immune system is still developing?

 

[Mark Kamill]

I would assume so, considering how HIV strains latch onto the important cells of the immune system and basically short circuit it to fail. Hopefully repercussions do not appear, cause there are many scenarios in which the patients immune system could be compromised due to this...

 

[Sir Codin]

I seriously hope there isn't a catch. But if there is, let's hope it's preferable to getting AIDS.

 

[EJ]

It's still too early to tell I guess. It'd be an interesting case study once they do a follow-up on the kid.

 

[scandal]

What if that the child's body may have absorbed some of the treatment into its developing immune system as typical coding for resistance against minor diseases. Now, the child's immune system may even be slightly different than average and they might even be COMPLETELY IMMUNE to HIV. That could truly be the beginning of the end of the HIV epidemic. Now, I'm just fantasizing here but wouldn't that be incredible?

 

[Mark Kamill]

Might sound like fantasy, but if this did hot wire the kids immune system for it to be impervious to the HIV strain, that would be one helluva scientific feat. I mean its possible, but its likely something that would be more of a side effect caused by luck then their actual intentions.

 

[Livewire]

Did the mother receive any ARV's while pregnant? What if the antiretrovirals passed to the child in utero, and that in combination with the therapy the child received the first few months helped cure the child?

EDIT: Wow, now that's really crazy that they literally just found out about the mother's HIV.

 

[Oryx]

Did the mother receive any ARV's while pregnant? Why if the antiretrovirals passed to the child in utero, and that in combination with the therapy the child received the first few months?

No, the doctor was not aware of the mother's status as HIV-positive until she was in labor. Usually they have ways to drastically reduce the chances of a child getting HIV from its mother, but in this case they weren't aware so they just had to do their best.

The man that was "cured" before had it done by having stem cells from someone who's naturally resistant to HIV injected into him, so these are two entirely different things. Hopefully this moves us forward in looking for a cure, but the explanations I've seen so far make sense as to why this worked in a newborn and would never work in an adult - they pumped the kid full of tons of treatment before the tests even came back to see if the child had HIV. This kept the virus from spreading throughout its system, finding hideouts, as HIV is prone to do. It would have been too late if they had waited the few days for the tests.

 

[Esper]

My takeaway from this is that a newborn, newly infected with the virus, can be given an intense regiment of existing drugs and that seems to cure them. It's good thing, but sadly not an out-and-out cure for everyone.

And of course we don't know if this would potentially immunize her if she's later exposed to the disease so we can't really call it a vaccine yet either. Still, it's kind of amazing.

 

[Shiny Celebi]

I think this is wonderful news that this child was cured. Though it may not work for everyone, and more reserch is needed. This isnt really the cure for everyone, but it worked for this child. Still big news.

 

[Alakazam17]

I think this is excellent news, and a sure sign that at least a few scientists have the right idea about finding a cure. Between this baby's case and the bone marrow guy, I believe there to be at least a few routes that can be taken on the quest to cure this disease once and for all.

 

[Kura]

A great step in the right direction! I just hope something develops from this :3 I remember when they found a cure for (I think it was) MS.. and it was kept under some wraps because of the medical industry. I am just glad we are making these advancements.

 

[Nihilego]

From my understanding of what's happened here, the whole "the cure won't be developed further" thing doesn't apply since it's what we're already using and mass distributing. What's believed to be the key factor here is that there is something about the immune system of infants that make them more resistant to HIV than adults, and are therefore more treatable. The actual treatment concerned is the same anti-retrovirals which'd be used on anyone. So really the big thing here goes beyond that we managed to cure HIV for the first time, using standard treatments no less, and into the fact that we may have found a function of the immune system in infants which we never knew existed. We could be going all sorts of places from that.

 

[Kura]

From my understanding of what's happened here, the whole "the cure won't be developed further" thing doesn't apply since it's what we're already using and mass distributing. What's believed to be the key factor here is that there is something about the immune system of infants that make them more resistant to HIV than adults, and are therefore more treatable. The actual treatment concerned is the same anti-retrovirals which'd be used on anyone. So really the big thing here goes beyond that we managed to cure HIV for the first time, using standard treatments no less, and into the fact that we may have found a function of the immune system in infants which we never knew existed. We could be going all sorts of places from that.

Yeah it opens up a lot of doors to many things really. I just mean to have it as a viable option in clinics when a mother is known to be HIV positive and there's a possibility of passing it onto her child. It would be great to see this standardized.

 

[Nihilego]

Ah, right. Yeah, that should happen - if they believe that HIV can be cured very early on (after, of course, getting a far larger sample size than 1...) then yeah it'd be great to see this offered in clinics. It's just that this time, we're much closer than usual since the medication used is already standard, which is great!