After being born in 2010 as an HIV-positive infant, the baby girl affectionately known in her hometown as the "Mississippi baby" was treated with potent anti-retroviral drugs just 30 hours after her birth in an effort to relieve the symptoms of the infection. For years, the little girl showed no signs of the disease and this has made doctors hopeful that they have found a way to cure HIV in children.
The medication regimen that was first administered shortly after her birth was maintained for up to 18 months after that. Unfortunately, doctors lost touch with her family and were unable to monitor her progress. A few months later, she returned and medical professionals still found no signs of the virus despite the fact that she was taken off her daily pill regimen. In an unprecedented occasion, she stayed off of the treatment for more than two years and was asymptomatic throughout that period.
Now four years old, the child was taken earlier this month for one of her routine clinical visits, and routine clinical tests revealed detectable levels of HIV in her blood. Her T-cell count has also decreased and there were elevated levels of HIV antibodies and her blood. This meant that her immune system was actively fighting off the infection and is also a clear indication that the HIV is, indeed, actively replicating once again in her body. Doctors at the John Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore described this recent turn of events as nothing short of disappointing. They were initially very optimistic about her results because, typically, HIV levels in the blood quickly pick up within a few days, not years, after stopping the treatment.
The child's previous results may have led doctors to believe that administering strong doses of the anti-retroviral drugs to children could curb the development of the infection during the earliest stages and eliminate the disease altogether. Researchers are now looking into how the child initially went into remission and are determined to find out how this time period can be prolonged even further in future cases.