Baby Born With Hiv Cured

A Mississippi baby born with HIV more than two years ago appears to be the first documented case of a child's being cured of the virus, according to doctors and scientists.

The unidentified child has now been "functionally cured" and has been off medication for about a year with no signs of the HIV infection. If the child remains healthy, it would mark only the second time in the world's history that a person has been cured of HIV, which is the virus that causes AIDS.

The landmark case was announced Sunday at the 2013 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta.

Dr. Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore was one of the lead researchers and author of the report, which was released by The Foundation for AIDS Research (amfAR).

The infant was diagnosed with HIV at birth to a mother who did not receive prenatal care or HIV treatment, Dr. Rowena Johnston, director of amfAR, told ABC News.

The infant was transferred to the University of Mississippi Medical Center and started on antiretroviral treatment about 30 hours after birth. Doctors took the apparently unusual step of prescribing three aggressive drugs (AZT, 3TC, nevirapine) at once after birth.

The only other documented case of an HIV cure to date remains that of Timothy Brown, the so-called "Berlin patient."