Fred Schaich of IFARA spoke with Asier Sáez-Cirión, Ph.D., of the Institut Pasteur in Paris about the French teenager who has achieved HIV remission for 12 years. The girl was infected at birth and prophylactically treated for the first six weeks of her life. After treatment was stopped, her viral load increased and long-term treatment was initiated at age three months. The child took antiretrovirals for the next five years, after which she was lost to follow-up for about a year.
She had not been on treatment for at least several months when she saw a doctor at age six, but her viremia was still under control. Antiretroviral therapy was therefore not restarted. The girl is now 18 years old and has HIV in her body, but the virus is not replicating even though she is not on treatment.
There are also adults whose HIV has been in remission for a number of years. All of them started treatment very soon after infection. Now we "need to better understand the mechanisms associated with the remission of infection" and find the markers for patients likely to achieve such remission, Sáez-Cirión concluded.
Watch the video to learn more:
Barbara Jungwirth is a freelance writer and translator based in New York.
The video above has been posted on TheBodyPRO.com with permission from our partners at the International Foundation for Alternative Research in AIDS (IFARA). Visit IFARA's website or YouTube channel to watch more video interviews from the conference, as well as earlier meetings.
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