A
now two year old child was born with the HIV infection from its mother. Within
the first two days of the child’s life it was given antiretroviral drugs, the typical HIV drug, and was
inspected through blood tests. The blood tests showed the child was HIV
positive, so they continued giving the drugs. Within the first month the copies
of HIV had fallen to 50 copies per milliliter of blood. The child continued to
take the antiretroviral drugs for 17 months and then stopped taking the
treatment. When the child was next seen by its pediatrician the copies of HIV
per milliliter had dropped to 20. This is within the normal rage and the child
then showed no HIV specific antibodies. This information will help to prevent
children from developing HIV.
NOS
Themes
1. Science is collaborative.
2. Science is based on evidence.
3. Science is subject to debate and tentative.
10. Role of motivation and curiosity.
http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2013/03/04/toddler_functionally_cured_of_hiv_infection_nihsupported_investigators_report.html
This is really interesting! I think it is great that doctors and scientists are finding cures for things like this. The baby couldn't help being effected by this disease so it is good news that they won't have to live with it.
ReplyDeleteThis is HUGE. this means they could cure HIV from babies, more than 1000 children are infected with HIV everyday thats 390,000 in 2010 and there were more than one million deaths in 2010 due to HIV, having cured this infant from the disease could mean the great possibility of curing most babies born with HIV (because it was passed on from their mother) and greatly reducing the number of people with HIV and the number of deaths from HIV a year!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.avert.org/worldstats.htm
http://www.avert.org/children.htm
This is great news! And hopefully this breakthrough will not stop here. Although HIV in infants is common in developing countries, in the US only 200 transmissions from mother to baby are made a year, so it is much more of an adult illness. Hopefully this breakthrough can help find new treatments for adults as well.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/03/06/hiv-baby-impact/1966969/