Second HIV baby may have been ‘cured’, doctors say

A baby in the US may have become the second in the world to be “cured” of HIV, after doctors said she appeared to be completely clear of the virus following a rigorous series of tests.

Announcing the breakthrough at an Aids conference in Boston yesterday, experts said they had used similar principles in treating the child as had proved so successful in the worldwide medical first declared last year.

The first infant potentially cured of HIV, from Mississippi, is now three-and-a-half years old and seemingly free from infection two years after her treatment was ended.

The second baby was born with HIV in Los Angeles last April, just a month after researchers revealed the Mississippi case. Doctors in California say they followed that example, beginning treatment just 30 hours after birth.

The Los Angeles baby is still receiving Aids medicines, meaning the status of her infection is not as clear, but a range of sophisticated tests at multiple times have shown no trace of infection.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/second-hiv-baby-may-have-been-cured-doctors-say-9172738.html