Aids Treatment & Cure: Teen in Long Remission After Stopping Medication

An 18-year old French teen born with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) stopped her medication for 12 years and now has her HIV/AIDS remitted, NBC News reports.

The doctors have seen the same situation with a Mississippi baby born with AIDS and left her condition untreated but regularly checked for 27 months. The virus was reported to disappear after early diagnosis and a series of treatments.

These cases have given fresh hopes for HIV carriers to acquire cure against the sexually-transmitted disease, which is well-known to affect both men and women worldwide.

"This is an exciting story, but it is unknown if the remission will last," Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, a co-discoverer of HIV and a scientist at the Pasteur Institute, told NBC News.

HIV can be transmitted through sexual activity and pregnancy. However, according to NBC, HIV-positive moms taking in medicines to cure the said virus can cut out the influence it may bring to the baby once it is born.

The case of the French girl was merely a story of tedious treatments undergone even right after her birth. After six years of treatment the doctors have lost contact with her shortly before her family decided to stop the treatment. After 12 years, they found out that the virus can no longer be found In her body where the virus levels are too low to be measured and found in her bloodstream.

"This girl is in remission of infection but she is infected and not cured," said Dr. Asier Saez-Cirion from Pasteur Institute in Paris, claiming that the tests confirms that there are no inscriptions in her genes that may have caused the remission.

BBC News reports that this case has been presented in an International Aids Society (AIS) conference in Vancouver.

Aside from distributing condoms and educating people about the dangers imposed by AIDS, it was also reported that standard treatment for AIDS as early as it has been diagnosed can help reduce the risk of developing it further.

AIDS specialist Dr. Sharon Lewin of University of Melbourne in Australia said this case is isolated. She said: "What's in the back of people's minds is, would this have happened anyway independent of her treatment."

But Dr. Lewin also said the science around HIV is maturing. "We need to identiify a robust test to measure very low levels of virus or find a better way to predict this idea of post-treatment control," she added.

Although to be subjected for further tests and examinations, the French teen is still a living evidence of what early treatment, if not prevention, can bring to human health.