Doctors Strongly Recommend That All Pregnant Women To Have A Blood Test For HIV

Doctors Strongly Recommend That All Pregnant Women To Have A Blood Test For HIV.
A child born two-and-a-half years ago in Mississippi with HIV is the sooner instance of a so-called "functional cure" of the infection, researchers announced Sunday. Standard tests can no longer ascertain any traces of the AIDS-causing virus even though the child has discontinued HIV medication. "We credence in this is the first well-documented case of a functional cure," said scrutiny lead author Dr Deborah Persaud, associate professor of pediatrics in the section of infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins Children's Center in Baltimore vimaxpill men. The finding was presented Sunday at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, in Atlanta.

The girl was not part of a study but, instead, the beneficiary of an unexpected and partly unplanned series of events that - once confirmed and replicated in a established study - might help more children who are born with HIV or who at risk of contracting HIV from their source eradicate the virus from their body. Normally, mothers infected with HIV take antiretroviral drugs that can almost bury the odds of the virus being transferred to the baby our website. If a mother doesn't recall her HIV status or hasn't been treated for other reasons, the baby is given "prophylactic" drugs at birth while awaiting the results of tests to conclude his or her HIV status.

This can take four to six weeks to complete. If the tests are positive, the indulge starts HIV drug treatment. The nurse of the baby born in Mississippi didn't know she was HIV-positive until the time of delivery.

But in this case, both the incipient and confirmatory tests on the baby were able to be completed within one day, allowing the baby to be started on HIV antidepressant treatment within the first 30 hours of life. "Most of our kids don't get picked up that early". As expected, the baby's "viral load" - detectable levels of HIV - decreased progressively until it was no longer detectable at 29 days of age.

Theoretically, this kid (doctors aren't disclosing the gender) would have infatuated the medications for the lie-down of his or her life, said the researchers, who included doctors from the University of Massachusetts Medical School and the University of Mississippi Medical Center. Instead, the neonate stayed on the regimen for only 18 months before dropping out of the medical routine and discontinuing the drugs.

Ten months after stopping treatment, however, the infant was again seen by doctors who were surprised to find no HIV virus or HIV antibodies with requirement tests. Ultrasensitive tests did detect infinitesimal traces of viral DNA and RNA in the blood. But the virus was not replicating - a approvingly unusual occurrence given that drugs were no longer being administered, the researchers said.