Rare Case of 9-Year-Old in HIV Remission for Years, Without Drugs

A nine-year-old South African child diagnosed with HIV at a month old has been living with HIV in remission for his whole life, without regular medication. This is the first reported case of a child living with HIV in Africa without drugs, and only the third case globally.

CNN reports that shortly after the child was born, it was placed on antiretroviral treatment for 40 weeks, then taken off. Blood tests in 2015 showed that the child was in remission, with an undetectable viral load. And when doctors tested samples from the child's infancy, they discovered that this remission was achieved soon after treatment was stopped.

Apparently, the early treatment was part of a larger research trial to investigate the potential of ART to decrease infant mortality and reduce the need for lifelong treatment.

That study, which ran from 2005-2011, included more than 370 infants infected with HIV who were randomly assigned to immediately receive ART for either 40 or 96 weeks.

It found that mortality decreased by 76 percent and HIV disease progression reduced by 75 percent among the infants who received treatment immediately. But most children receiving early treatment in the trial had to go back on ART after about two years, with only 10 percent having low enough viral loads.

"This is really very rare," said Dr. Avy Violari, head of pediatric clinical trials at the Perinatal HIV Research Unit at the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa. Violari, the child's doctor, presented the findings at the 9th International AIDS conference on HIV Science in Paris on Monday.

"The child is the only child showing remission. We cannot see virus in the blood using standard techniques... we can see fragments of the virus in the cells," she said, adding that these fragments appear not to be able to replicate, for now, giving hope the child may stay this way. "This child is unique. By studying these cases, we hope we will understand how one can stop (treatment)."