You can view 5 more pages before signing in

Clearance of HIV in the newborn

Last reviewed dd mmm yyyy. Last edited dd mmm yyyy

There have been reports concerning a child whose mother had HIV infection that had negative cultures for HIV at birth. The child then had positive cultures at 19 days of age and at 51 days of age. On the latter occasion the virus was cultured from plasma and blood cells. Subsequent cultures for the virus were negative; as was PCR testing for viral antigen. The child became HIV-antibody negative and remains well 5 years later (1)

There have also been other less well documented cases in the literature.

These cases suggest that HIV infection in some neonates may be transient. The mechanism for this apparent transient infection is not known.

Reference:

McIntosh K, Burchett SK (1995). Clearance of HIV - lessons from newborns. NEJM, 332, 883-4.

Create an account to add page annotations

Create a free account

Annotations allow you to add information to this page that would be handy to have on hand during a consultation. E.g. a website or number. This information will always show when you visit this page.