Mississippi baby HIV cure had such a promising outcome that the case generated excitement last year. According to health officials, what researchers previously thought as a Mississippi baby HIV cure was in fact ineffective and the baby still has the virus after all.
npr.org reports that the discovery of the Mississippi baby HIV cure being not cure at all is a huge setback for the recipient more known as the "Mississippi baby." The recent discovery is reportedly also complicates new efforts to test what appeared to be a promising new treatment for infants born with HIV.
In 2012, the Mississippi baby was born to an HIV-positive mother. Since the mother had not received prenatal care, she wasn't identified as HIV positive until her labor. To try and stop the baby's infection, doctors tried the Mississippi baby HIV cure, reported to be an aggressive combination of drugs administered to the baby right after she was born.
HIV-infected infants would normally have to stay on the antivirals for life. But in the case of the Mississippi baby HIV cure, the mother reportedly stopped bringing her child to the clinic following 18 months of the treatment. When they went back to the clinic five months later, the mother said she had already stopped giving the baby medicine, but blood tests still showed no signs of HIV infection.
Since then, hopes were high and the Mississippi baby HIV cure was thought to be a success.
The news of the Mississippi baby HIV cure reportedly had many hoping that that was what doctors were looking for. However, Dr. Hannah Gay of University of Mississippi Medical Center who had treated the baby at the hospital was still watching out for an HIV infection.
She said in a conference call, 'Ever since we discovered this case in 2012, we've known that was a possibility.'
After doctors found out from the mother that the baby had stopped taking the antivirus, doctors did not administer anti-HIV drugs once again, but they kept checking her for the disease infection every six to eight weeks. According to reports, more than two years passed by with no sign of the virus, hence the Mississippi baby HIV cure thought to be a success.
Gay said, 'So, last week was one of those regularly scheduled visits. The child came; she had no abnormalities on physical exam.'
However, it was the blood tests which revealed that the baby had an active HIV infection, and that the virus apparently emerged from an unknown area in her body.
Gay said in the conference call, 'It felt very much like a punch to the gut. It was extremely disappointing. We had been very hopeful that this would lead to bigger and better things.' She also expressed her disappointment "for the sake of the child, who is now back on medicine and expected to stay on medicine for a very long time.'
Meanwhile, the National Institutes of Health had reportedly planned on a huge study involving more than 700 other HIV-infected newborns because of the story of the Mississippi baby HIV cure. The reported strategy is a treatment using powerful drug combination at birth and if they show no signs of infection, they will be taken off drugs at age 2.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said of the study which will be based on the Mississippi baby HIV cure, 'The study is still in play. But we're now just taking a close look at it ... to make sure that with the study we do it in an ethically sound way, and we get some answers to important questions.'
According to NPR, every year, thousands of newborns are brought to the world through HIV-infected mothers. The situation mostly arises poor countries. It would be a great service to mankind if a cure could be administered to the babies at the time of birth.
In the meantime, according to scpr.org, the setback in the Mississippi baby HIV cure, despite discouraged researchers, has not changed doctors' opinions on how they will handle a similar case in Los Angeles.
The L.A. baby is reportedly not unlike the baby from the Mississippi baby HIV cure study. The L.A. baby was also born HIV-positive and has become free of the virus after early drug intervention. A little more than a year has passes and the L.A. baby is already over a year old and is "doing extremely well," said Dr. Yvonne Bryson, a pediatric infectious disease expert at UCLA who has been helping to manage the case. The girl has to take three AIDS drugs twice a day.
Bryson said, 'The baby has remained negative, but the caution is, it's really even too early to say this baby is in remission because the baby is still on therapy.'
Mississippi baby HIV cure story was taken into account by doctors who were working on the L.A. baby. The Mississippi baby started the AIDS drugs while she was still one day old. This time, the doctors at Miller Children's Hospital in Long Beach reportedly started giving the L.A. baby's mother AIDS drugs during labor, as well as a first dose to the HIV-positive girl just four hours after birth. When the L.A. baby turned six days old, she reportedly had no signs of the virus.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
