--- title: HIV/AIDS: South African Child Is In Remission Without Drugs description: Scientists report on an encouraging case of a child with sustained remission of HIV with early treatment, but without continuing drugs. canonical: https://time.com/4868535/hiv-aids-remission-drugs/ author: Alexandra Sifferlin article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-07-24T14:05:52.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:54:11.338Z article:section: Health og:title: Child With HIV Has Been in Remission For Years Without Drugs og:description: Scientists report on an encouraging case of a child with sustained remission of HIV with early treatment, but without continuing drugs. og:url: https://time.com/4868535/hiv-aids-remission-drugs/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfde12a4b6d80edef/6988d6e54ee262038430e465/hiv-south-aftica-remission.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: FRANCE-HEALTH-AIDS-SCIENCE og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Child With HIV Has Been in Remission For Years Without Drugs twitter:description: Scientists report on an encouraging case of a child with sustained remission of HIV with early treatment, but without continuing drugs. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfde12a4b6d80edef/6988d6e54ee262038430e465/hiv-south-aftica-remission.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Child With HIV Has Been in Remission For Nearly 9 Years Without Drugs > Sponsored content. 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Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators. ## Video: Brainstorm Health: How HIV Research Changed Health Care [Watch (HLS stream): Brainstorm Health: How HIV Research Changed Health Care](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/8y7P6xiH.m3u8) (6:02)  _Published 2017-05-03. Drs. Larry Corey and Diane Havlir, two physicians specializing in HIV, discuss how the virus has changed health care over the years._ by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jul 24, 2017 2:05 PM UTC  International AIDS Society president Linda-Gail Bekker and President of the French National Ethics Advisory Committee and conference chairman Jean-Francois Delfraissy attend the opening of the 9th International AIDS Society conference on HIV Science on July 23, 2017, in Paris. International AIDS Society president Linda-Gail Bekker and President of the French National Ethics Advisory Committee and conference chairman Jean-Francois Delfraissy attend the opening of the 9th International AIDS Society conference on HIV Science on July 23, 2017, in Paris.Francois Guillot—AFP/Getty Images by [Alexandra Sifferlin](https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/) ## Alexandra Sifferlin Jul 24, 2017 2:05 PM UTC HIV researchers announced on Monday that a nine-year-old child from South Africa has been living with [HIV](http://time.com/4865443/drug-resistant-hiv-world-health-organization/) in remission for almost nine years—without continuing the use of HIV drugs. Researchers say this is the third case of prolonged HIV remission after early treatment. The study adds to new but growing evidence that early treatment of HIV in children, beginning in infancy, may bring HIV to undetectable levels and potentially lower the need for life-long drug therapy. At the the [9th International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science](https://www.ias2017.org/) in Paris, researchers presented the results on the child who was diagnosed with HIV in 2007—32 days after birth—and enrolled in a clinical trial. In the trial, infants diagnosed with the virus were randomly assigned to either receive delayed antiretroviral therapy (ART) or to be given early ART treatment for 40 or 96 weeks, at which point it would be stopped. The South African child is among 143 infants who received ART for 40 weeks. The child had very high levels of HIV in the blood before starting treatment when it was about nine weeks old. With treatment, levels of the virus dropped to a point where they were no longer detectable. After 40 weeks of treatment, researchers stopped the therapy and tracked the child closely. So far, the child has maintained nearly undetectable levels of the virus. Scientists were able to detect a small supply of virus in a very small portion of immune cells, but so far they have not found evidence of an HIV infection, and the child has shown no symptoms of the disease. The child is the third to reach long term remission with no drugs. In 2010, a child referred to as the “[Mississippi Baby](https://www.niaid.nih.gov/news-events/toddler-functionally-cured-hiv-infection-nih-supported-investigators-report)” was born with HIV and began treatment just 30 hours after birth. The treatment was stopped when the child reached around 18 months. After a couple years, however, the virus [re-appeared ](https://www.niaid.nih.gov/news-events/mississippi-baby-now-has-detectable-hiv-researchers-find)and the child was put back on ART. In 2015, scientists [reported](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352301815002325?via%3Dihub) another case in a French child. According to the case study, a French baby was born with HIV in 1996 and received treatment when it was three months old. The child stopped treatment a few years later and has continued to control the virus without drugs. **MORE:** [How Cows Are Helping the Fight Against HIV](http://time.com/4865239/how-cows-are-helping-fight-against-hiv/) “To our knowledge, this is the first reported case of sustained control of HIV in a child enrolled in a randomized trial of ART interruption following treatment early in infancy,” said study author Avy Violari, head of pediatric research at the Perinatal HIV Research Unit, in a statement. The study authors believe that other factors may be contributing to why the South African child’s immune system has been so successful at keeping HIV levels down, and they plan to keep following the child and study its immune system. Currently, doctors and scientists start children with HIV on ART and do not stop the treatment. According to Violari, the child in the new case study partook in the trial 10 years ago when treatment guidelines for children were different. “Although the medications have risks, the benefits far outweigh the risks,” said Violari in an email to TIME. “At this stage, we don’t recommend any child stops treatment.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4868535/hiv-aids-remission-drugs/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4868535/hiv-aids-remission-drugs/"},"headline":"Child With HIV Has Been in Remission For Nearly 9 Years Without Drugs","datePublished":"2017-07-24T14:05:52.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:54:11.338Z","description":"Scientists report on an encouraging case of a child with sustained remission of HIV with early treatment, but without continuing drugs.","url":"https://time.com/4868535/hiv-aids-remission-drugs/","keywords":["HIV/AIDS","Art","HIV","Aids","child"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfde12a4b6d80edef/6988d6e54ee262038430e465/hiv-south-aftica-remission.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Alexandra Sifferlin","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/alexandra-sifferlin/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltfde12a4b6d80edef/6988d6e54ee262038430e465/hiv-south-aftica-remission.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"FRANCE-HEALTH-AIDS-SCIENCE","caption":"FRANCE-HEALTH-AIDS-SCIENCE","creditText":"Francois Guillot—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/hivaids/","name":"HIV/AIDS"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4868535/hiv-aids-remission-drugs/","name":"Child With HIV Has Been in Remission For Nearly 9 Years Without Drugs"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Brainstorm Health: How HIV Research Changed Health Care","description":"Drs. 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