Second person to ever be cured of HIV. And it's a 2 years old child.

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**Kovnik Obama**

I fething love science. Why? Because :

Dr. Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins University today described the first documented case of a child being cured of HIV. The landmark findings were announced at the 2013 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta, GA.

Dr. Persaud, an amfAR grantee, detailed the case of a two-year-old child in Mississippi diagnosed with HIV at birth and immediately put on antiretroviral therapy. At 18 months, the child ceased taking antiretrovirals and was lost to follow-up. When brought back into care at 23 months, despite being off treatment for five months, the child was found to have an undetectable viral load. A battery of subsequent highly sensitive tests confirmed the absence of HIV.

According to Dr. Persaud, comprehensive tests have confirmed beyond doubt that both mother and child were HIV positive when the child was born, and today no signs of HIV infection in the child can be detected by the most sensitive means available.

The only other documented case of an HIV cure to date remains that of Timothy Brown, the so-called "Berlin patient." In 2006, while on treatment for HIV, Mr. Brown was diagnosed with leukemia. His physician was able to treat his leukemia with a stem-cell transplant from a person who was born with a genetic mutation causing immunity to HIV infection. Following the transplant, Mr. Brown was able to stop HIV treatment without experiencing a return of his HIV disease.

"We are proud to have played a leading role in bringing this first pediatric HIV cure to light," said amfAR CEO Kevin Robert Frost. "The case is a startling reminder that a cure for HIV could come in ways we never anticipated, and we hope this is the first of many children cured of HIV in the months and years to come."

Full story at : http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130303172640.htm

**KalashnikovMarine**

Now that's a win!

**Spyral**

Pretty cool!

**Dreadwinter**

Well this is an awesome story to wake up to.

**djphranq**

I think you might want to clarify in the topic title... HIV not AIDS though I know they are related

**Kovnik Obama**

djphranq wrote:
I think you might want to clarify in the topic title... HIV not AIDS though I know they are related

Yes, thanks! By curing HIV they stopped the kid's health from deteriorating enough to develop AIDS. Even more of a win!

**Mr. Burning**

It's a functional cure.

The HIV virus may still be present, in minute quantities.

It is an awesome story but HIV is a long way from being cured.

**Kovnik Obama**

The link does state that there was no viral load whatsoever. They also seem (I don't think anyone here has the training to properly evaluate that) to have gone through tremendous lenght to confirm if the kid was cured or not.

But yeah, it's a case of one kid being cured. They don't even know how he was cured, just that he was.

**rockerbikie**

That is awesome and at least it is a start. Hopefully it won't be long to a vaccine is developed.