Slashdot Mirror
Child Thought To Be Cured of HIV Relapses, Tests Positive Again
An anonymous reader writes: The Mississippi child, who was born with HIV passed from her mother, received HIV treatment for 18 months after her birth. In the course of over two years after the treatment, her blood indicated no trace of the virus or of HIV-specific antibodies, leading many to hope that she may have been cured completely. Earlier this month, however, the virus was detected again. Nearly 4 years old, the child is once more being given HIV treatment, and scientists are trying to figure out how she could have gone so long before relapsing.
When I first read about this on CNN the other day, the article stated that the child's mother had stopped giving her the anti-viral medication she was prescribed. There was no an explanation as to why.
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
I expect it is more of a case where they got the numbers down so low that the infection wouldn't register, perhaps hibernating in a nook in the body. After the virus stopped getting assaulted it was allow to grow and infect again.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Found the article:
http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/10/...
"The child remained on antiretroviral drugs for approximately 18 months. Her mother then stopped administering the drugs for an unknown reason".
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
Researchers confirmed through DNA sequencing that the infection in the child is not a new infection, but was the one passed from the mother.
GP implies stopping the drugs was the direct cause for the relapse.
The CNN article states the child was initially "functionally cured" a few months after stopping the drugs.
The facts us readers know, indicate neither correlation nor causation between stopping drugs and the relapse.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Why is this at all surprising? We know how HIV works and that it can hide in cells. So when someone is 'cleared' of it you can never be sure. The longer the drugs are taken increases the chances of clearing any dormant HIV (when it emerges). One can statistically figure out the best time to stop the treatment and many people could be free from reinfection for life but it is not a 100% certainty.
The only news is that a mother stopped the drugs too early.
The more shocking part of this article isn't that the patient wasn't cured of a disease for which we have no cure, but that anyone thought she was in the first place.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
That's what originally excited the doctors: the kid was off her antiretrovirals for two years without relapse.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Oh this is the most intellectually lazy of bullshit.
Saying "Why would stopping treatment lead to a relapse?" as if there was no trivially understood relationship there. It's just... silly. I mean, come on bro, no one wants to jump to conclusions, but this is like saying "I stopped watering my houseplant, and at some point, it died. We don't know there's any relationship there."
I *think* it tends to mutate when it spreads.
If it has the virus exact same DNA as the mother (or at least the same strain the child already had), then it likely means that this is the strain the child got while in utero. If it was a fresh infection it would be slightly different from the original infection.
It sounds like the people who study these things and know what they mean have ruled it out as being a re-infection, but the same infection which has re-emerged.
I'm going to go with the people who study these things.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Because HIV has numerous properties that allow it to remain dormant in a host for a long time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIV#Replication_cycle
No, if you RTFA, it goes:
1) Baby has HIV, given retrovirals.
2) Mother brings in baby for regular checkups/tratments for 18 months
3) Mother and Baby "dissappear" for a few months
4) When baby is brought back in, it tests negative for HIV
5) For about 2 years the baby tests HIV free
6) Baby tests HIV positive again at ~4.5 years of age.
7) We suffer from your misinformed post.
As wikipedia assures us (emphasis added):
A retrovirus is a single-stranded RNA virus that stores its nucleic acid in the form of an mRNA genome (including the 5' cap and 3' PolyA tail) and targets a host cell as an obligate parasite. Once inside the host cell cytoplasm the virus uses its own reverse transcriptase enzyme to produce DNA from its RNA genome, the reverse of the usual pattern, thus retro (backwards). This new DNA is then incorporated into the host cell genome by an integrase enzyme, at which point the retroviral DNA is referred to as a provirus. The host cell then treats the viral DNA as part of its own genome, translating and transcribing the viral genes along with the cell's own genes, producing the proteins required to assemble new copies of the virus. It is difficult to detect the virus until it has infected the host. At that point the infection will persist indefinitely.
No, because she abandon treating her child for HIV for 18 Months.
Meaning the virus can never be eliminated, but only reduced asymptotically; thus the symptoms are asymptomatic.
Life is not for the lazy.
... this is like saying "I stopped watering my houseplant, and at some point, it died. We don't know there's any relationship there."
My favorite line from a college Logic book: "Breathing causes death. Everyone who has died was an habitual breather."
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Strictly speaking, the assertion mwvdlee makes is logical. You can't affirm the consequent like that. But it's completely unreasonable in that it freely disregards other available(and in fact trivially commonplace) information about how diseases, and HIV in particular, work.
Seems to me stupid to say a person is cured if they have to keep taking meds to prevent a relapse.
By that standard insulin is a cure for diabetes.
From this blog post it sounds like the mother taking her off the drugs was what prompted the initial finding: the doctors would have been unethical to tell someone to take their HIV + kid off antivirals because there's a chance they may have killed all the viruses.
As far as why, the cocktail isn't super convenient. It's a bunch of pills taken throughout the day. Getting a toddler to take multiple pills a day every day is probably a very frustrating thing. I'd imagine the mother (who didn't have any prenatal care and didn't realize she was HIV positive until after birth) doesn't have the best health insurance, so the out of pocket expenses probably really quickly added up.
I mean, that's obviously all small potatoes compared to developing drug-resistant HIV and full blown AIDS and dying. Not excusing her actions, just saying it's understandable.
I don't have anything else to add...
Peace, or Not?
[calling a moron a moron]
You're doing god's work.