A four-year-old in Mississippi, who last year was named the first man to be completely cured of HIV infection, has had a relapse.
The girl was infected with HIV during childbirth. Her mother knew she was a virus carrier. Dr. Hannah Gay of the University of Mississippi Medial Center decided to give the baby three powerful antiviral drugs at the same time on the second day after birth.
Treatment keeping the virus in check was to last a lifetime, but the mother, without consulting her doctors, stopped giving her daughter drugs after 15 months and did not contact the doctors for almost six months.
When she finally showed up at the clinic, the doctors expected high levels of HIV in the girl’s blood. To their surprise, the virus could not be detected. The child also had normal levels of CD4 and CD8 lymphocytes. The tests were repeated after a few days and the same results were obtained. In March 2013, news of the first complete cure from HIV infection spread around the world.
Unfortunately, during the routine monitoring of anti-HIV serum levels in the 27th month after stopping treatment, the virus was found to survive in the girl’s body and become active again. A four-year-old was given drugs that worked again. Most likely, she will have to take them for the rest of her life.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, believes the Mississippi girl’s case, after all, remains important because it proves that aggressive early treatment helps to stop the virus from multiplying. Dr. Deborah Persaud, a virologist at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the baby’s medical team, is of a similar opinion. Virus remission, albeit temporary, is an argument that early treatment may one day lead to the development of an even better treatment, emphasizes Dr. Persaud.
Based on: Reuter / BBC News / KopalniaWiedzy