Early treatment may have cured baby’s HIV infection

In a news story that is already blazing across the Internet like a California wildfire, an HIV-positive baby born in rural Mississippi appears to have been cured of the disease thanks to immediate medical treatment once the baby was born. The mother was determined to be HIV-positive during a rapid test administered when she was in labor. Once the baby was identified as HIV-positive, a medical team at the University of Mississippi Medical School in Jackson began a cocktail of AZT and two other anti-HIV drugs on the infant 31 hours after birth. 29 days later, HIV was undetectable in the infant by standard tests. The baby’s caretaker then stopped treatment at 18 months, but when checked at 21 months, the disease had not returned. The findings of this are to be presented on March 4, and the theory goes that because the treatment began so early and so aggressively, it treated the disease before it could establish an impregnable reservoir within the baby’s own cells. There is only one other documented case of HIV being cured.