Hope On The Horizon

A South African child’s miraculous HIV remission sparks hope that a cure for the deadly disease is not far off.

- Khatija Nxedlana

THE discovery was described as close to a miracle – and one of the most exciting developments in the war against a rampant virus once regarded as a death sentence.

A South African child diagnosed with HIV 32 days after birth had beaten the virus into long-term remission – almost nine years after receiving a drug cocktail as part of a clinical trial as a baby.

This child is the third one with HIV to go into remission and has given scientists renewed hope of finding a cure for a condition that affects 36,7 million people, 7 million of them in South Africa.

The child is regarded as being “functionally cured”, meaning the child still has traces of the virus in their system but it’s so weak it can’t replicate or spread to others. Here’s a look at this remarkable case and what it could mean for people living with HIV.

NEW HOPE

The breakthrough was the talk of the recent International Aids Society (IAS) Conference on HIV Science in Paris, France. The child, whose identity and sex can’t be revealed, was enrolled in a Children with HIV Early Antiretroviral Therapy (CHER) trial led by doctors Avy Violari and Mark Cotton at the age of one month.

When the child was nine weeks old the treatment suppressed the virus to undetectable levels and medication was stopped as part of the trial process. Doctors have maintained a close watch on the child’s immune system and the presence of the virus.

“To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of sustained control of HIV in a child enrolled in a randomised trial following treatment early in infancy,” Violari said.

PROMISING POSSIBILITIES

The key laboratory investigations in this case were led by Professor Caroline Tiemessen, a research professor in virology in the school of pathology at Wits University and head of the National Institute for Communicable Diseases.