HIV Cure?

The National Institutes of health has published a statement saying that a two-year-old child, born to a mother with the AIDS causing HIV virus and testing positive for the virus itself, is now off medication.  How did this happen?  What implication does this have for future treatment of HIV infected newborns?  First off, lets be clear, being off medication is not the same thing as being cured.  The child, whose sex has not been released, has undetectable levels of virus using standard tests.  However, more sophisticated test still show that the virus remains.  The amount of virus is very low, and it is not replicating at this point. 

The theory is that this “functional” cure occurred because the child could be treated so quickly.  He or she received the first doses of antiretroviral medication (the HIV virus is a retrovirus) approximately 30 hours after it was born.  Thus preventing the virus from firmly establishing itself in its host’s cells.

The bottom line, in my opinion, is that this is a functional, not an absolute, cure.  It is certainly not impossible that in the future this child may need to be put back on antiretroviral therapy.  However, in the meantime at least, he or she does not have to be medicated and can go on living a normal life.