Posted on July 22, 2014
Source: Voice of America
WASHINGTON —
Hope and commitment motivate Deborah Persaud. An infectious disease expert, she’s among researchers worldwide who are “on a mission to find a cure for AIDS,” she says. “But this is going to be a very long road.”
An associate professor at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore, Maryland, Persaud is part of a trio – with physicians Hanna Gay and Katherine Luzuriaga – who devised an aggressive drug therapy used on a Mississippi girl born infected with HIV. The girl was considered “functionally” cured after being treated from just after birth for 18 months and then going without medicine at least another year without showing signs of infection. Her recent relapse made headlines when it was divulged earlier this month. Now almost 4, the girl is back on medication.
Even before that setback, Persaud had been cautious.
“We’re all very optimistic because of the biological possibilities, but we do have to remind ourselves that it is a single case,” Persaud told VOA in June, repeating the importance of more study.
Earlier research has led to a significant drop in HIV-infected mothers passing the disease to their children during pregnancy, delivery or through breast feeding, the United Nations’ UNAIDS reports. In the United States, which calls for screening pregnant women for HIV, about 200 infants are born infected each year – down from 900 in 1992. Treatment early in pregnancy cuts the risk of mother-to-child transmission to 2 percent or less, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
