Toddler in the United States cured of HIV

Doctors in Mississippi, USA say that a baby was born with the virus after receiving it from her mother. However, because the mother was not treated for HIV except for just before delivery of the baby, they administered high doses of three antiretroviral drugs within 30 hours of her birth.

Two years later and there is no evidence of HIV in the child’s blood. Doctors therefore announced that the unnamed toddler becomes the first child to be “functionally cured” of HIV. They credit this to the high dosage of antiretroviral drugs that was administered as a result of the mother not having received timely treatment for HIV.

A "functional cure" is when the presence of the virus is so small, lifelong treatment is not necessary and standard clinical tests cannot detect the virus in the blood.

Dr. Hannah Gay, a pediatric HIV specialist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center told CNN that “ the timing of intervention -- before the baby's HIV diagnosis -- may deserve more emphasis than the particular drugs or number of drugs used."

She said that it was her hope that future studies will show that very early institution of effective therapy will result in this same outcome consistently.