Date: Thu, 30 Mar 1995 14:03:08 +0500
From: ghmcleaf{CONTRACTOR/ASPEN/ghmcleaf}%NAC-GATEWAY.ASPEN@ace.aspensys.com
Subject: NIAID Press Memo, 03/29/95

P R E S S   M E M O
*****************************
National Institutes of Health
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases


March 29, 1995

To:   Editors, Producers and Reporters

From: Marion E. Glick
      Chief, Information Projects Section

Re:   Clearance of HIV Infection in Infant

Federally supported investigators at the University of California
at Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Medicine, report in the March 30
The New England Journal of Medicine about an infant who cleared
HIV infection.  All information about the study, funded by the
National Institutes of Health (NIH), is embargoed until 6 p.m.
Eastern Time, Wednesday, March 29, 1995.

The infant reported is the first virologically well-studied
patient who clearly had HIV that is now undetectable, says NIH-
grantee Yvonne Bryson, M.D., lead author of the article.  Small
numbers of other HIV-infected children whose infections seem to
have disappeared have been reported, but these cases were not
well documented and in the absence of definitive explanation
usually were attributed to laboratory errors.

The child, now five years old, was born to an HIV-infected
mother.  Scientists could not find HIV in the child's blood when
the child was born, but viral culture tests at day 19 and day 51
did reveal the virus.  Later attempts to find HIV using HIV-
culture techniques, polymerase chain reaction and antigen
searches did not reveal any virus.  Today, the child is healthy
and has no evidence of HIV infection.

Increased knowledge of when and how HIV is eliminated from the
body could have profound implications for the prevention of HIV
transmission as well as treatment and vaccine development,
according to NIH scientists.  This child's experience fits into
one of the categories that could also be an outcome of HIV
exposure after immunization--transient infection with no later
evidence of virus or disease.  Also, these data and additional
studies may further understanding of why approximately 70 percent
of infants born to HIV-infected mothers in the United States
escape infection.

Scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious
Diseases (NIAID), which helped support the study, caution that
although the report provides new and encouraging information
showing  that, in rare instances, infants may clear HIV, the data
do not  suggest that HIV infection in infants will automatically
disappear.

Rather, the findings raise numerous questions about the frequency
and mechanism of transient HIV infections, the implications for
pregnant women and their children, and the HIV disease process
and the body's immune response.

Investigators do not know how HIV is cleared in such children.  A
number of possible explanations may suggest how the transient HIV
infection reported in the NEJM article may have occurred.  The
theories, all of which require more evidence and testing, include
that the infant had an immune response to HIV that either
eliminated or is totally supressing the virus.  The immune
response could come from maternal antibodies passed during
pregnancy and/or from the infant's immune system.  Another theory
is that the child may have been infected with a defective form of
HIV that could not adequately replicate.  The UCLA study does not
offer data that could clarify either the type of immune response
this child had or the viral characteristics beyond its genetic
fingerprint.

NIH-supported researchers are developing interventions based on
active and passive immunization to prevent infected pregnant
women from transmitting HIV to their children.  This approach is
analogous to the highly successful strategy to prevent hepatitis
B in newborns, which uses a combination of hyperimmune globulin
(a protein solution containing high concentrations of antibodies
to hepatitis B) given at birth and a series of vaccinations given
at birth and during infancy.  Currently, phase I studies are
evaluating the ability of available candidate HIV vaccines to
stimulate immune responses in HIV-infected pregnant women and in
their infants.  The NIH also supports efficacy trials in the
United States and other countries to evaluate passive
immunization for the prevention of perinatal transmission.

In addition to the NIAID, other supporters of the UCLA study
include the National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development (NICHD), Fogarty International Center (FIC), the
National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) and the Leukemia
Society of America.  NIAID, NICHD, FIC and NCRR are part of NIH,
the federal focal point for biomedical and health research.

To pursue stories on this or related topics please call the NIAID
Office of Communications at (301) 402-1663 or the NICHD Office of
Research Reporting at (301) 496-5133

                               ###