By Ian Sample, guardian.co.uk, March 3,2013

Doctors in the US have made medical history by effectively curing a child born with HIV, the first time such a case has been documented.

The infant, who is now two and a half, needs no medication for HIV, has a normal life expectancy and is highly unlikely to be infectious to others, doctors believe.

Though medical staff and scientists are unclear why the treatment was effective, the surprise success has raised hopes that the therapy might ultimately help doctors eradicate the virus among newborns. [.....]

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For First Time, Baby Is Cured of H.I.V., Doctors Say
By Andrew Pollack and Donald G. McNeil, Jr., New York Times, March 3, 2013

[.....] The baby, born in rural Mississippi, was treated with antiretroviral drugs starting around 30 hours after birth, something that is not usually done. [.....]

The United Nations estimates that 330,000 babies were newly infected in 2011, the most recent year for which there is data, and that more than 3 million children globally are living with H. I. V [.....]

If the report is confirmed, the child born in Mississippi would be only the second well-documented case of a cure in the world, giving a boost to research aimed at a cure, something that only a few years ago was thought to be virtually impossible.

The first person cured was Timothy Brown, known as the “Berlin patient,'’ a middle-aged man with leukemia who received a bone-marrow transplant from a donor genetically resistant to H.I.V. infection. [.....]