As we have studied in our History of Epidemic Disease class we know that HIV is a retrovirus which causes AIDS. During our immunology unit we learned that the HIV virus infects helper T cells which are a huge contributor to our immune system. Helper T Cells are the part of our immune system which deals with adaptive immunity, without these cells a person will eventually die.
As of just recently many people figured that HIV could not be cured. Even though a lot of research has been put into trying to find a cure for HIV there has not been much luck. Up until just very recently a toddler was cured of HIV. This is why I chose an article about a child whom seems to be cured of this virus.
The article I chose is from CNN written by Saundra Young. Saundra illustrates the reasons this child was able to be cured. You can access this article at the following link.
This young girl from Mississippi is the first person to ever be "functionally" cured of HIV which is a huge accomplishment to be made. This child's mother was HIV positive and didn't even know up until about the time she was going to give birth. Usually mothers who are HIV positive are treated with such measures during their pregnancy which make it very unlikely for the virus to be passed on to their child.
This child was given three antiretroviral drugs for 15 months, her mother than tried to stop the use of drugs but the doctors highly recommended the child would stay taking these drugs. After 2 years the child's blood no longer had strains of HIV in it. Doctors believe that this may be because of the early exposure to the drugs. Usually in cases like this the doctors wait weeks to administrate the drugs to the child but this child's administration started just 30 hours after birth.
After reading this article I learned that a Berlin patient known as Timothy Brown had both leukemia and HIV in which he received a bone marrow transplant which cured him of both. Scientists and doctors believe this was because he had a rare case of HIV.
In all this recent event will have an impact on the way doctors handle HIV positive patients in the future. This "accidental" cure will definitely be a key factor to the introduction of new studies in hopefully finding the cure of all HIV.
I thought that this article was very interesting because no one has been cured from HIV. HIV is very serious and until today I have never heard of anyone who has survived HIV. Good job with explaining what was going on and also very interesting article!
ReplyDeletethis was a realy big step in the science world. curing a child of HIV is an amazing task. This will help progress the research in curing HIV so hopefully then can cure more people. You did a good job in giving the background info on HIV and on how most children get it. Having cured the first child of HIV can help lead us on the right track to cure it for good
ReplyDeleteThe curing of HIV in a child is a truly revolutionary step in combating HIV. For over 30 years, AIDS has been considered a death sentence, even with effective anti-retroviral drugs that can add a few years to a person's life. Now, thanks to decades of dedicated research and trial and error, this girl will grow up never knowing what life with AIDS is like. Her case, however, is unique, as anti-retroviral treatment has never been started on so young a person, and the doctor administrating the treatment knew that a great deal of risk was involved. It is very likely that following treatments will result in mishaps, and it is inevitable that thousands of other people will die from AIDS before the disease is eliminate, but this single experiment will be looked upon in the future as the beginning of the end for our generation's greatest epidemic.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Brian after reading this article I was very interested myself, I hope in the future this helps with the curing of HIV. Its sad how much of an Epidemic Aids has in this country and other countries surrounding. Hopefully doctors are able to travel and make this something the whole world can benefit from.
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