Second Baby Cured of HIV

Recently the scientists from Johns Hopkins University have made ​​a presentation at the Boston Conference on AIDS on another case of a full recovery from the disease that had been previously considered incurable. This time, their patient was a girl, born in one of the maternity hospitals in Los Angeles.

The baby was born in April last year. The mother knew about her HIV-positive status, but did not take any medication during pregnancy. In the first four hours of life, the girl had a standard antiretroviral therapy (immune stimulation), and after six days of treatment the tests showed that the baby had got rid of the deadly virus.

Despite this, the child will continue receiving the standard treatment for the people with HIV for at least a year, and then it will become clear if the girl is ill or not.

One year ago, the same group of scientists announced the full “functional cure” of a girl born in 2010 in Mississippi. The baby received antiretroviral therapy almost immediately after birth, and then it was given medications for half year. 18 months later, the mother stopped treating her daughter with medicines, and 10 months later the results of the analysis showed that the girl no longer was the carrier of the virus.

According to the researchers at Johns Hopkins University, clinical trials of a new way to fight HIV must begin within three months. 50 babies are expected to receive immune stimulation.