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Toysinbabeland -> RE: Who is your Person of the Year? (12/31/2013 7:55:20 AM)
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I'm not sure who it is, but Whoever was responsible for this gem:
. Road to the End of AIDS: A Newborn Is Functionally Cured of HIV
It seemed almost too good to be true, so Dr. Hannah Gay, a pediatrician at University of Mississippi Medical Center, checked the numbers again. But they told the same story. A toddler born to a mother infected with HIV was, after two years, seemingly free of the virus. The infant was functionally cured of HIV.
The baby, who showed signs of infection just after birth, was able to shed its viral load thanks to a combination of three anti-HIV drugs that doctors normally use to treat older infants and adults. Generally, doctors give both the HIV-positive mom and newborn baby a single antiretroviral drug during delivery to stop transmission of the virus from mother to child. But because the baby’s mother did not know she was HIV positive, that precaution wasn’t taken. So Gay and her colleagues took a chance on the more potent drug cocktail. It worked, and the virus has not returned, even after the child stopped taking the medications.
Experts are hedging their celebrations, especially in light of the latest research showing that up to 60% more HIV may lie dormant in infected individuals than previously thought. These reservoirs could potentially seed new infections and cause new symptoms. But the Mississippi toddler represents the hope that if doctors can intervene early enough after HIV infection, there might be a chance of stopping the disease altogether.
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