Monday, March 4, 2013

Ground-breaking Development: 2-year-old Baby Cured from HIV/AIDS Infection


It has now been more than three decades since the world came to know about HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. About 30 million people have fallen prey to this killer disease and 7,000 people a day are infected with HIV around the world.

2-year-old Baby Cured from HIV/AIDS Infection

Most recently; a potentially ground-breaking case could offer insights on how to eradicate HIV infection in its youngest victims.

Two-and-a-half year old baby girl, who was born with HIV, has been cured after very early treatment with standard drug therapy, researchers say. The Mississippi girl has been off HIV drugs for about a year with no signs of infection.
Although there is an important technical tone: researchers insist on calling it a “functional cure” rather than a complete cure; but still the development is a bright ray of hope that could help improve treatment of babies infected at birth.

 During the medical conference at Atlanta, doctors say that the girl has only trace amounts of HIV in her bloodstream and has been able to keep the virus that causes AIDS in check without the help of medication.

Further testing yet to be done to establish that whether the treatment would have the same effect on other children or this case has some exceptions; but undoubtedly it could transform the way high-risk babies are treated and possibly lead to a cure for children with HIV, which causes AIDS.
"This is a proof of concept that HIV can be potentially curable in infants," said Dr Deborah Persaud, a virologist at Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore.
Attempting to replicate the results in other HIV-positive infants is "our next step," said Dr. Persaud further, who described the Mississippi patient at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections. She and others are to make a formal presentation during the conference's scientific program later today (Monday).
The only fully cured AIDS patient recognized worldwide is the so-called “Berlin patient,” American Timothy Brown. He is considered cured of HIV and leukemia five years after receiving bone marrow transplants from a rare donor naturally resistant to HIV. The marrow transplant was aimed at treating his leukemia.

Report Tags:

Timothy Ray Brown, The Berlin Patient, HIV, AIDS, HIV Baby, HIV Girl Cured, Deborah Persaud, Mississippi girl, HIV News

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Health Warning: SARS-like virus re-emerged, already infected 12 worldwide


The number of confirmed cases worldwide reach to 12 with yet another person in UK has been infected by new potentially deadly SARS-like virus. The person is the third victim from the same family, while this is the fourth case as a whole emerged in Britain.
Health Warning: SARS-like virus re-emerged infected 12 worldwide

The number of confirmed cases worldwide reach to 12 with yet another person in UK has been infected by new potentially deadly SARS-like virus. The person is the third victim from the same family, while this is the fourth case as a whole emerged in Britain.  
In September last year, a 49-year-old Qatari national was treated at a London hospital in September for the virus. Five people have died of the virus, according to the HPA — three in Saudi Arabia and two in Jordan.
The latest person infected with novel coronavirus, also known as NCoV, was a relative of two other cases revealed earlier this week, who were admitted to intensive care units (ICU’s) at two British hospitals; Britain’s Health Protection Agency (HPA) said in a statement.
British family’s first confirmed victim of the virus had recently travelled to West Asia and Pakistan; while the other two family members had no recent travel history.
The HPA said the latest patient was “recovering from a mild respiratory illness and is currently well’’.
The virus belongs to the same family as SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) - a coronavirus that surfaced in China in 2002-03 and killed about 800 worldwide, 1 out of 10 infected was died after contracting with deadly virus.
Symptoms common to both viruses include severe respiratory illness, fever, coughing and breathing difficulties.
NCoV was identified when the WHO (World Health Organization) issued an international warning in September 2012 saying a virus previously unknown in humans had infected a Qatari man in Britain who had recently been in Saudi Arabia.
Report Tags:
SARS, SARS-Like, SARS-Like Virus, New SARS-Like Virus, SARS-Like in Britain, SARS-Like Virus in UK, SARS-Like Virus Cases, SARS-Like Virus Confirmed, HPA, 

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...