A baby treated for HIV within hours of birth is free of the virus nearly a year later, in the second case that has raised hopes about early treatment, doctors say.
The approach mirrored that taken for a Mississippi baby, who has been off treatment for 21 months and still has no detectable virus in her system.
The latest research on the two young girls was presented on Wednesday at the annual Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI) in Boston, Massachesetts.
The newest case involves a Los Angeles baby born to a mother infected with HIV and who had not been taking her medications, making her at high risk for transmission.
Audra Deveikis, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Miller Children's Hospital Long Beach, where the baby was born, tested the infant and gave her high, treatment-level doses of antiretroviral drugs before even knowing if she was HIV-positive.
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Yvonne Bryson is chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California and is a consultant on the case.
She said: "The way it works is you test and you treat before you know the results because it takes several days to get the results."
Treatment started at four hours of age, even earlier than the Mississippi child.
Eventually, the tests came back positive for HIV.
But by six days of age, the virus was undetectable.
"The remarkable thing about this particular baby is that the virus disappeared so quickly," said Bryson.
The baby is still being treated with antiretroviral drugs, and researchers are cautious not to utter the word "cure" or even "remission" just yet.
Now aged 11 months, the baby is doing well and continues to see doctors while under the care of a foster family.
She has "no detectable viral load, nothing since six days of age. That is the earliest ever," said Bryson.
Once she turns two, doctors may decide to stop suppressive therapy to see if she is in remission, or if the virus would rebound.
There is no known cure for AIDS, which has infected some 70 million people around the world and killed 35 million, according to the World Health Organisation.
