Extra! First Case Of Long-Term HIV Remission

[rebelmouse-image 27089219 alt="""" original_size="750x933" expand=1]

Libération, July 21, 2015

What is being hailed as the world's first known case of long-term remission from HIV, in an 18-year-old French woman born with the virus, is featured in today's Paris-based newspaper Libération with the headline, "Curing HIV."

The girl, who was born in 1996, contracted the virus that causes AIDS from her mother and was given four anti-retroviral drugs when she was three months old. For reasons that have not been made public, her family decided to stop the treatment when she was six.

But when she was tested again a year later, she had undetectable levels of HIV in her blood. Today, her HIV level is still below standards and she is healthy despite not taking any drugs. No scientific reasons for that have been found for the moment.

This could be the first long-term remission case in the world. In 2013 a Mississippi baby born with HIV had no detectable virus in her blood for 18 months, though the virus subsequently returned.

ABOUT THE SOURCE: Libération is a leading left-wing daily French newspaper based in Paris.

WORLDCRUNCH

Premium stories from Worldcrunch's own network of multi-lingual journalists in over 30 countries.

WORLDCRUNCH

LES ECHOS

You've reached your limit of free articles.

To read the full story, start your free trial today.

Get unlimited access. Cancel anytime.

Exclusive coverage from the world's top sources, in English for the first time.

Insights from the widest range of perspectives, languages and countries.

Migrant Lives

Migration

What's Driving More Venezuelans To Migrate To The U.S.

With dimmed hopes of a transition from the economic crisis and repressive regime of Nicolas Maduro, many Venezuelans increasingly see the United States, rather than Latin America, as the place to rebuild a life..

Photo of a family of Migrants from Venezuela crossing the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum

Migrants from Venezuela crossed the Rio Grande between Mexico and the U.S. to surrender to the border patrol with the intention of requesting humanitarian asylum.

David Peinado via Zuma Press

Julio Borges

-Analysis-

Migration has too many elements to count. Beyond the matter of leaving your homeland, the process creates a gaping emptiness inside the migrant — and outside, in their lives. If forced upon someone, it can cause psychological and anthropological harm, as it involves the destruction of roots. That's in fact the case of millions of Venezuelans who have left their country without plans for the future or pleasurable intentions.

Their experience is comparable to paddling desperately in shark-infested waters. As many Mexicans will concur, it is one thing to take a plane, and another to pay a coyote to smuggle you to some place 'safe.'

Venezuela's mass emigration of recent years has evolved in time. Initially, it was the middle and upper classes and especially their youth, migrating to escape the socialist regime's socio-political and economic policies. Evidently, they sought countries with better work, study and business opportunities like the United States, Panama or Spain. The process intensified after 2017 when the regime's erosion of democratic structures and unrelenting economic vandalism were harming all Venezuelans.