The first widespread success in curing HIV may come from children, not adults.

Starting in the mid-2010s, the University of Oxford pediatrician and immunologist began working with scientists in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, with the aim of tracking several hundred children who had acquired HIV from their mothers, either during pregnancy, childbirth, or breastfeeding.

After putting the children on antiretroviral drugs early in their lives to control the virus, Goulder and his colleagues were keen to monitor their progress and adherence to standard antiretroviral treatment, which stops HIV from replicating. But over the following decade, something unusual happened. Five of the children stopped coming to the clinic to collect their drugs, and when the team eventually tracked them down many months later, they appeared to be in perfect health.

  • AlmightyDoorman@kbin.earth
    181·
    11 days ago

    Did we read the same article? The point is that for some people it resulted in no viral load even without drugs over a prolonged time.

    In a study published last year, Goulder described how all five remained in remission, despite having not received regular antiretroviral medication for some time, and in one case, up to 17 months. In the decadeslong search for an HIV cure, this offered a tantalizing insight: that the first widespread success in curing HIV might not come in adults, but in children.

    Instead, like Goulder, pediatricians have increasingly noticed that after starting antiretroviral treatment early in life, a small subpopulation of children then seem able to suppress HIV for months, years, and perhaps even permanently with their immune system alone.

    • qt0x40490FDB@lemmy.mlEnglish
      21·
      11 days ago

      Yes, that is what I read roguetrick as saying. The headline should include the lede “viral load undetectable, even after therapeutics stops”, however, this lede gets buried in the article, instead of highlighted in the headline.

      • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
        11·
        11 days ago

        Wouldn’t surprise me if the editor didn’t want to publish the more accurate “viral loads vanish despite stopping antiretroviral drugs” because anti medicine folks would run with it in the wrong direction.