Earlier this year, in March, the State Column reported of the potential for a human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) cure for newborns that were born HIV-positive, with the risk of it progressing to the fatal acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Using an early, aggressive drug treatment, a team of doctors announced that a second child born with HIV was living HIV-free due to this course of treatment. Now, in an unfortunate follow-up to this case, it seems the young patient is no longer in remission.

According to Reuters, a child born in Mississippi received aggressive treatment during the first 30 hours of her life. Born to an HIV-positive mother who had had no prenatal care, the child was rushed to the University of Mississippi Medical Center. At that time, doctors gave the newborn a three-drug cocktail of powerful HIV medications. Normally, children suspected of HIV infection are given a milder course of treatments until tests can confirm the infection.

The child remained on treatment for a total of 18 months, then stopped coming in for treatment. When she returned to the medical center some weeks later, the child showed no sign of the virus. By the age of three, the young girl had no trace of HIV in her blood. Unfortunately, at the age of four, the toddler once again has detectable levels of the virus.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that, at the end of 2009, an estimated 1,148,200 people aged 13 and older were living with HIV infection in the U.S. In 2011, the estimated number of persons diagnosed with AIDS in the United States was 32,052. The cumulative estimated number of AIDS diagnoses through 2010 in the United States was 1,155,792. This case raised hopes for the roughly 250,000 children who are born each year infected with HIV.