SCIENCE/MIRACLE

Baby With HIV Cured

Blasted with antiretroviral drugs immediately.

This is a big one. Doctors said that they had successfully cured a baby with HIV for the first time. The Mississippi baby was blasted with antiretroviral drugs 30 hours after birth—usually a newborn with the virus is given one or two drugs to fend off the disease. This time, instead of waiting to confirm infection, doctors essentially nuked the disease, lowering virus levels immediately and seemingly eradicating the illness. There are approximately 330,000 babies who were born with HIV in 2011. If confirmed, this is the second documented case of a cure, the first being the “Berlin patient” who was given a bone-marrow transplant. The only remaining question about this baby: whether the child was actually infected with HIV.