A French teenager born with HIV has kept the virus in remission for over a decade after her medications were discontinued, doctors said Monday.
Advertisement
Two years ago, a young girl in America appeared to be free of HIV but the remission lasted for just two years after treatment stopped. Born with the virus, she was prescribed the drugs when she was a month old and continued for the next six years.
It is believed that girl was infected with HIV either at the end of her mother’s pregnancy or during childbirth itself.
Starting antiretroviral treatment early against HIV is highly effective at preventing sexual transmission of the deadly virus in partners, a new study conducted in nine countries, including India, has found.
Subsequent tests showed levels of the virus undetectable 29 days after birth.
Dr Asier Sáez-Cirión of the Institut Pasteur “attributes” her results to early adoption of antiretroviral drugs soon after infection.
However, scientists acknowledge this is the first case of long term remission in a child and say they remain very cautious since it is a single case.
The case is the first-known example of a HIV-positive child being in long-term remission years after finishing taking anti-HIV treatment.
“Based on the new data and analysis, the study now reports the overall risk of developing serious AIDS events, serious non-AIDS events, or death, was reduced by 57 percent among those in the early treatment group, compared to those in the deferred group”, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which helped pay for the study, said in a statement.
“This is an important step forward for optimizing HIV prevention strategies for people who would otherwise be at high risk for acquiring HIV infection”, said Grant, who chaired the study.
Nature writes that the case of the woman is also the longest known pediatric HIV incidence that has shown no side effects, which makes the researchers positive about the possible findings they can have once a further study or observation is done. This scale-up in testing is crucial considering only half of people living with HIV know their status and therefore can not be linked into treatment.
Doctors reporting the news did say the girl experienced one rise in virus levels when she was 11.
Play video “HIV Checks For A&E Blood Patients”. “We need to try to find other such cases-and find out their markers, to see whether we can predict remission”, she said.
Nobel laureate Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, who co-discovered the HIV virus in 1983, explained toCNN.
She said she was “sure there will be others” but they can not be complacent about finding a cure. The experiment will cost about US$5 million and could start next year with more than 100 patients, said Steve Deeks, the trial leader and a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
Why this girl has fared better to date than the Mississippi baby and most patients with HIV is not clear, and is a topic of intense scrutiny.
Advertisement
The lack of sexual transmission of HIV by virally suppressed individuals in this large study provides robust evidence that antiretroviral therapy started at any time in the course of infection can prevent heterosexual HIV transmission if viral suppression is achieved and maintained, the investigators note.
