Teenager in HIV remission despite stopping treatment 12yrs ago

An 18-year-old French teen born with the Aids virus has had her infection under control and nearly undetectable despite stopping treatment 12 years ago - an unprecedented remission, doctors are reporting. The teen might have some form of natural resistance to HIV that hasn’t yet been discovered. But her case revives hope that early, aggressive treatment can limit how strongly the virus takes hold, and perhaps in rare cases, let people control it without lifelong drugs. A few years ago, doctors reported a similar case: a Mississippi girl who kept HIV in check for 27 months without treatment. But then her virus rebounded, dashing hopes that early treatment might have cured her.

This case is clearly additional evidence of the powerful benefit of starting treatment as soon as possible.

Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, a scientist at the Pasteur Institute

At least a dozen adults have had remissions for a median of 10 years after stopping HIV medicines, but the new French case is said to be the first long-lasting one that started in childhood. The case was described Monday at an International AIDS Society conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, by Dr Asier Saez-Cirion of the Pasteur Institute in Paris. The teen lives in the Paris area and her identity was not revealed. The girl’s mother did not have her HIV under control in pregnancy, and doctors think her daughter was infected before or during birth. Doctors gave the baby an HIV drug - zidovudine, or AZT - for six weeks, which was the standard of care at that time. Tests then showed she still had high levels of HIV in her blood, so she was given a more powerful four-drug combination.

It’s always hard to know, when you have a single case report, is there something about this particular individual that’s unique?

Sharon Lewin, an Aids scientist at the University of Melbourne

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