French Teen in HIV Remission

An 18-year-old who was born with HIV but stopped taking antiretroviral drugs before she turned six has no detectable levels of the virus in her body.

| 2 min read

Register for free to listen to this article
Listen with Speechify
0:00
2:00
Share

Scanning electron micrograph of an HIV-infected H9 T cellIMAGE, NIAIDDoctors in France cannot detect any HIV in a woman who was born with the virus but was started on a cocktail of antiretroviral drugs from the time she was a few months old until she was about six. The 18-year-old has lived for about 12 years without taking any medication for HIV infection and does not have any of the genetic factors that make some people resistant to the virus. The physicians who have verified her more than decade-long remission presented data confirming the discovery at the International AIDS Society conference in Vancouver, Canada, on Monday (July 20). Because other children born with HIV and started on antiretrovirals soon after birth have shown similar therapeutic success only to later show signs of HIV's return, researchers are viewing this new case— the longest documented remission from HIV—with cautious optimism. “This girl is in remission,” Asier Sáez-Cirión, a researcher at the Pasteur Institute who examined the woman in Paris, told The Washington Post. “She’s not cured.”

“There have been other reports of treating infants followed by stoppage of antiretroviral therapy that have not turned out as well,” Scott Sieg at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, told New Scientist. “This case provides new hope.”

The woman’s mother had HIV; after her birth, doctors gave the baby a prophylactic drug to prevent infection. But she was diagnosed with HIV when she was a month old. Shortly thereafter, she started antiretroviral therapy and continued until she was six, when her family took her off the drugs and ceased contacting her doctors. After six months of no medical treatment, this year her doctors could not detect the virus in her body.

The case illustrates the growing consensus that aggressively treating patients with antiretroviral ...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

The Scientist Logo
Receive full access to more than 35 years of archives, as well as TS Digest, digital editions of The Scientist, feature stories, and much more!
Already a member? Login Here

Keywords

Meet the Author

  • Bob Grant

    From 2017 to 2022, Bob Grant was Editor in Chief of The Scientist, where he started in 2007 as a Staff Writer.
Share
3D illustration of a gold lipid nanoparticle with pink nucleic acid inside of it. Purple and teal spikes stick out from the lipid bilayer representing polyethylene glycol.
February 2025, Issue 1

A Nanoparticle Delivery System for Gene Therapy

A reimagined lipid vehicle for nucleic acids could overcome the limitations of current vectors.

View this Issue
Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Considerations for Cell-Based Assays in Immuno-Oncology Research

Lonza
An illustration of animal and tree silhouettes.

From Water Bears to Grizzly Bears: Unusual Animal Models

Taconic Biosciences
Sex Differences in Neurological Research

Sex Differences in Neurological Research

bit.bio logo
New Frontiers in Vaccine Development

New Frontiers in Vaccine Development

Sino

Products

Tecan Logo

Tecan introduces Veya: bringing digital, scalable automation to labs worldwide

Explore a Concise Guide to Optimizing Viral Transduction

A Visual Guide to Lentiviral Gene Delivery

Takara Bio
Inventia Life Science

Inventia Life Science Launches RASTRUM™ Allegro to Revolutionize High-Throughput 3D Cell Culture for Drug Discovery and Disease Research

An illustration of differently shaped viruses.

Detecting Novel Viruses Using a Comprehensive Enrichment Panel

Twist Bio