经济学人下载:艾滋病研究 HIV感染者被治愈了?

Science and technology
科学技术

AIDS research
艾滋病研究

Cured of HIV?
HIV感染者被治愈了？

An American child seems to have been
美国HIV感染幼童似乎真是如此

IN JOURNALISM, cynics suggest, three data points are enough for a trend.
愤世之士认为，在新闻界里三个数据点就足以确定一条曲线走势。

As of March 4th, AIDS researchers hope two might be sufficient.
然而在3月4日，艾滋病研究人员却满怀信心地认为，也许两个数据点就足够了。

On that day Deborah Persaud of Johns Hopkins University announced to the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections, in Atlanta, Georgia, that a patient under her care had been cured of HIV infection.
约翰斯·霍普金斯大学的黛博拉·佩尔绍德于当日在佐治亚州亚特兰大的逆转录病毒和机会感染会议上宣布，她负责的一个感染HIV的病人已被治愈。

The announcement was hedged with caveats.
说是治愈，其实是有一定前提。

But the bottom line was clear.
但最关键的信息已经很明确了。

Dr Persaud thinks her patient, a two-and-a-half-year-old girl, has joined Timothy Brown, a man known to many as the Berlin patient, as a human who was once infected with HIV and now no longer is.
佩尔绍德博士认为，她的患者—一名两岁半的女婴和柏林病人—蒂莫西·布朗一样，虽然曾经感染了HIV，但现在已经康复了。

The girl was born infected because her mother was infected but was not under treatment at the time.
这名女婴的母亲是HIV病毒携带者，但她错过了治疗时间，所以该女婴一出生就感染了病毒。

She was given standard anti-retroviral drugs almost immediately and for 18 months afterwards.
之后女婴立即接受了抗逆转录病毒治疗，治疗持续了18个月。

Doctors then lost track of her for five months and when she returned to their attention, they found the virus had vanished.
随后的五个月里，医生与女婴失去联系。当她再次返回接受治疗时，医生们发现她体内的病毒已经消失了。

Half a year later, despite the fact that she is no longer taking anti-AIDS medicine, there is no sign of HIV having returned.
半年后，女婴体内也检测不到HIV的迹象，尽管在这期间内她已停止服用抗艾滋病药物。

This is a result of great potential significance.
这个结果可能带来重大意义。

Mr Brown's cure was effected because his bone marrow was destroyed and replaced during a course of treatment for leukaemia.
布朗治愈案例之所以成功，是因为他在白血病治疗中，骨髓先被损毁，然后进行了替换。

That is hardly a viable approach for most people.
这种途径对大多数人来说几乎不可行。

But if HIV infection can be cured with drugs, as Dr Persaud's observations suggest, a whole new line of investigation opens up.
但如果诚如佩尔绍德博士的观察所示，HIV感染者能够通过药物治疗痊愈，那么它就为艾滋病研究打开了一条全新的思路。