HIV-Positive Baby Cured, Doctors Ponder Implications of Breakthrough Achievement

A baby born with HIV who was put on an aggressive new treatment immediately after being born now appears "functionally cured", doctors say. Researchers call this the closest they have come to putting an end to the epidemic, that claims 2 million lives worldwide every year.

The baby shows no detectable sign of the virus in her blood -- meaning that the virus that causes AIDS is not entirely gone from the little girl's system, but it is not doing any damage either.

"You could call this about as close to a cure, if not a cure, that we've seen," said Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health.

The Mississippi girl, now 2, still shows a trace of HIV in her bloodstream but has been able to keep the virus at bay without the help of medication. The case was presented Sunday at a medical conference in Atlanta and is a promising example for efforts to eliminate HIV in children -- especially in the AIDS-ridden African continent.

"Our next step is trying to replicate the results in other HIV-positive infants," said Dr. Deborah Persaud, a virologist at Johns Hopkins Children's Center who took part in the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.

At the conference, Dr. Persaud presented the Mississippi case: The baby girl was diagnosed with HIV at birth and was put on faster and stronger treatment than the usual, starting within 30 hours of birth. At 18 months, the child ceased taking the medication and until she was 23 months old. Even after being 5 months without treatment, the child was found to have an undetectable viral load. A slew of highly sophisticated tests revealed the absence of HIV.

Dr. Hannah Gay, the pediatrician who treated the baby at the University of Mississippi, said that "this baby was at higher-than-normal risk and deserved our best shot."

This unusual case is yet to be published and have a second opinion assessment. Skeptics say that the baby might have been born healthy. In the United States, more than 98 percent of babies born to a mother with the virus do not get infected, thanks to preventive treatments. However, in this case the mother reportedly did not know she was HIV-positive until she was already in labor.

Dr. Fauci admitted there was a chance of that the baby was born without the virus, but it is unlikely.

"It makes perfect sense what happened," he added, saying that the research opens up a lot of doors to find the definite cure for HIV.

The only other case considered cured of AIDS was Timothy Ray Brown of San Francisco, through a vastly different procedure. While on treatment for HIV in 2006, Brown was diagnosed with leukemia. He was able to obtain a stem-cell transplant from a person who was born with the rare genetic mutation that causes immunity to HIV. Ever since, Brown was able to stop HIV treatment without experiencing a return of the disease.

This new case shows that there may be different cures for different populations of HIV-positive people, researchers think. Babies born to infected mothers differ from other patients, because doctors know the precise moment that they contract the disease and can treat them right away.

"This case has major implications for how we begin to think about treating children," said Dr. Persaud. "Maybe we will spare them a lifetime of treatment."