"cured" HIV Patient show signs of virus again

[Mr. Laz]

just knew this was coming, doctors can't cure shit. Not enough profit in it.

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After Two Years, Baby "Cured" of HIV Is Showing Detectable Virus Levels
Robert Sorokanich


After Two Years, Baby "Cured" of HIV Is Showing Detectable Virus Levels

The "Mississippi Baby," born with HIV and treated with antiretroviral drugs immediately after birth, showed no evidence of HIV after two years without treatment. Now the child has detectable levels of the virus once again. It's a sad conclusion to what seemed like an extremely promising new way to treat this vicious disease.

The National Institute of Health reports that the child, born in 2010 to a mother who was diagnosed as HIV positive during delivery, was started on a three-drug antiretroviral cocktail just 30 hours after birth. It was an unusual method, and at 23 months the child's blood samples showed no detectable level of HIV virus or the telltale immune system antibodies that indicate active infection. The child remained HIV-free for more than two years, an unprecedented length of time.

However, during a routine exam this month, the child, now nearly four years old, tested positively for HIV. Genetic testing shows it's the same virus strain carried by the child's mother. The child was immediately put on antiretroviral therapy and is tolerating the treatment without side effect.

This isn't the first time a patient has been temporarily "cured" of HIV, only for the virus to reappear later. Two male HIV patients who received bone marrow transplants showed no measurable virus levels for several months, though both eventually had the disease return.

In all cases, it's a tragic turn of events for the patients and their families. But even if the technique wasn't a permanent cure, the fact that it cleared the Mississippi Baby of HIV for so long is extremely promising for future research. "The prolonged lack of viral rebound, in the absence of HIV-specific immune responses, suggests that the very early therapy not only kept this child clinically well, but also restricted the number of cells harboring HIV infection," Katherine Luzuriaga, M.D., professor of molecular medicine, pediatrics and medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, told the NIH.

The Mississippi Baby may not have been cured, but whatever process allowed the child to go two years with no measurable infection is certainly promising for the future of HIV treatment. [NIH via The Verge]

['Hamas' Jenkins]

HIV is able to enter a dormancy phase in certain infected cells for years. While dormant, antiretrovirals can't clear it out, because they only work on active viruses that are either trying to enter specific host cells or are replicating inside by hijacking the host cell's machinery.

It is possible the child could have been infected through drinking breast milk, but hopefully the mother wouldn't be that ****ing stupid.

If you want some better news, recent trials of zinc finger nuclease , which has the ability to disable one of the chemokine receptors that HIV attaches to on the outside of a CD4 cell, has shown promise.

[tooge]

Aids trees suck