These days there is a lot of talk about what could be one of the biggest and most revolutionary news related to the AIDS virus: a US medical team claims to have cured the AIDS virus to a baby.
The news came yesterday at the 20th Conference on Retrovirus and Opportunistic Diseases in Atlanta and left all attendees dumbfounded. As they explained, the baby, who is a girl, was born with HIV transmitted by the mother and now, who is two and a half years old, has not been taking any medication for a year and without showing signs of being infected by the AIDS virus.
How the girl was cured
The girl, a native of Mississippi, was born with the virus and doctors decided to treat it from the beginning, but with high doses of antiretroviral drugs. That is, the girl counted with a few hours when she was already receiving the first doses.
Little by little they were observing that as the days passed the virus levels decreased. Past three months the virus was gone. As the results were quite incredible and as a prevention the girl continued to take the same treatment for 18 months. One year after he left the medications, as we mentioned, there is no trace of the virus.
The second case of AIDS cure
Although it may be believed that this girl is the first person to be cured of the AIDS virus, the reality is that is the second. In 2007 Timothy Ray Brown was cured of the virus thanks to a treatment in which he had a bone marrow transplant of stem cells belonging to a donor who has a rare genetic mutation that makes him resistant to HIV infection.
Does it open a door to hope?
The case, presented by Deborah Persaud, of the John Hopkins University in Baltimore, has generated much curiosity, hope, but also prudence. I say prudence because everything has happened perhaps more as a coincidence than as an extrapolated case to other babies and children. It has not been carried out as a clinical trial, it is a single case and the consequences or effects that may result in the result are unknown.
In other words, Maybe the healing of this girl is the exception, and not the rule, perhaps if the same treatment were carried out with hundreds of babies, it could be seen that it only cures a minimum percentage, or perhaps many, or perhaps all.
The fact is that when a baby has been infected by the AIDS virus (in the first world it hardly happens) it is usual to wait a bit to assess what to do, because the baby's immune system is very immature and because there are no adequate preparations for the children. However, on this occasion, doctors did not want to wait and advanced the most commonly used antiretroviral treatment in children in poor countries.
This action causes doubt to be generated (why did they run so much?), Although it is known that if there is a known exposure to the virus, immediate treatment can prevent the virus from finding a place to settle (these are the treatments that they are used when a healthcare professional has an accident with fluid contact, namely, cut or prick with material already used with a patient with the virus). However, according to Persaud, the analysis in the girl had already shown that the virus was settled and replicating, so the cure cannot be explained from this theory.
Another reason that could make people talk about exceptionality is that the girl had genetic immunity, as the donor of the first case of healing, but it is not so.
Nor could anyone understand (I speak of the assistants) why the girl had stopped taking the medications with 18 months, because once a treatment with antiviral drugs is started it is not suspended (when this happens the virus usually reactivates quickly). Without specific data, it is suspected that the parents could not afford to pay for the child's medicines, since they come from a rural area and, when giving birth, not even the mother knew she had HIV (no controls were made during the pregnancy).
Upon reaching two and a half years and revealing that the girl was not taking anything, the Hospital professionals wanted to resume treatment immediately. However, seeing that after a year there was no trace of the virus they didn't see fit.
And as a last doubt in the case, the girl does not even presently present antibodies to HIV. In theory, even if the virus has been immunized, the trace in the immune system should be able to be observed.
For all this, because it is an isolated case and because several relatively strange data are observed, it cannot be said that progress has been made in the fight against the AIDS virus. Now, thanks to the girl, thanks to this case, there are many questions and many doubts that can help to find new ways of research to achieve, then yes, a treatment that can be studied as a clinical trial and with which to achieve Useful conclusions for medicine and those affected.
