HIV: Is a Cure in Reach?

Where HIV Hides

Usually, babies who might be HIV positive get medications to prevent the virus. Only when two tests come back positive are they switched to drugs that treat HIV. By this time, a baby could be 2 or more weeks old.

Sometimes doctors take a different approach, though. A baby from Mississippi received treatment medications just 30 hours after birth, and another baby from California was treated when she was only 4 hours old.

The Mississippi baby still shows no signs of HIV at age 3. The baby in California was still HIV-negative almost a year after birth.

Scientists think that giving strong treatment medications so soon after birth may have gotten rid of HIV hiding in the body, or prevented it from forming. This shows that HIV probably needs to reproduce for quite some time, weeks maybe, says Deborah Persaud, MD, a professor of pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, who was involved with both babies. That gives researchers and doctors a more precise window for treatment.

Earlier Treatment

People who have HIV are encouraged to get treated as as soon as they know. 

Babies can be tested and monitored right after birth. Adults, on the other hand, rarely know exactly when they got infected -- but more frequent screening tests could lead to earlier treatment.

If someone tests positive for HIV in a clinic, for example, health care professionals might want to "start treatment and ask questions later," says David Hardy, MD. He's a clinical professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a board member of the HIV Medicine Association.

More Research Needed

The Mississippi and California babies will be several years old before there are any related changes to the HIV treatment that most people get. First we need more research. A trial is underway to treat high-risk newborns within 48 hours of birth, and then take them off medications at about 2 years.