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Science and technology
科學技術
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
美國HIV感染幼童似乎真是如此
IN JOURNALISM, cynics suggest, three data points are enough for a trend.
憤世之士認為，在新聞界里三個數據點就足以確定一條曲線走勢。
As of March 4th, AIDS researchers hope two might be sufficient.
然而在3月4日，艾滋病研究人員卻滿懷信心地認為，也許兩個數據點就足夠了。
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.
約翰斯·霍普金斯大學的黛博拉·佩爾紹德于當日在佐治亞州亞特蘭大的逆轉錄病毒和機會感染會議上宣布，她負責的一個感染HIV的病人已被治愈。
The announcement was hedged with caveats.
說是治愈，其實是有一定前提。
But the bottom line was clear.
但最關鍵的信息已經很明確了。
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.
佩爾紹德博士認為，她的患者—一名兩歲半的女嬰和柏林病人—蒂莫西·布朗一樣，雖然曾經感染了HIV，但現在已經康復了。
The girl was born infected because her mother was infected but was not under treatment at the time.
這名女嬰的母親是HIV病毒攜帶者，但她錯過了治療時間，所以該女嬰一出生就感染了病毒。
She was given standard anti-retroviral drugs almost immediately and for 18 months afterwards.
之后女嬰立即接受了抗逆轉錄病毒治療，治療持續了18個月。
Doctors then lost track of her for five months and when she returned to their attention, they found the virus had vanished.
隨后的五個月里，醫生與女嬰失去聯系。當她再次返回接受治療時，醫生們發現她體內的病毒已經消失了。
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，女嬰體內也檢測不到HIV的跡象，盡管在這期間內她已停止服用抗艾滋病藥物。
This is a result of great potential significance.
這個結果可能帶來重大意義。
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，是因為他在白血病治療中，骨髓先被損毀，然后進行了替換。
That is hardly a viable approach for most people.
這種途徑對大多數人來說幾乎不可行。
But if HIV infection can be cured with drugs, as Dr Persaud's observations suggest, a whole new line of investigation opens up.
但如果誠如佩爾紹德博士的觀察所示，HIV感染者能夠通過藥物治療痊愈，那么它就為艾滋病研究打開了一條全新的思路。
