Tuesday, March 5, 2013

HIV Cure (Disease could be eliminated among children )

Teams of US doctors claims to have cured infant of HIV




London: American researchers claimed to have cured an infant of HIV infection in a medical breakthrough that raises hopes for thousands of babies across the world who contract the deadly virus in their mothers wombs.


This is the first child and only the second HIV-infected person to have been cured of the disease,if the claim announced on Sunday by a research team from Johns Hopkins Childrens Center (JHCC) and the University of Massachusetts Medical School is found to be true.


The team hoped that the success could be replicated in other children born with HIV which would pave the way for eliminating the disease among children.HIV-related breakthroughs are rare and finding a vaccine has been a daunting challenge thanks to the ability of the virus to slip through.


The researchers put a Mississippi-born infant,whose mother is HIV-positive,on antiretroviral therapy (ART) within 30 hours of birth.


This halted the formation of hard-to-treat viral reservoirs dormant cells responsible for reigniting the infection in most HIV patients within weeks of stopping therapy.


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