LONDON (Reuters) - Treating people with HIV rapidly after they have become infected with the virus that causes AIDS may be enough to achieve a "functional cure" in a small proportion of patients diagnosed early, according to new research.

Scientists in France who followed 14 patients who were treated very swiftly with HIV drugs but then stopped treatment found that even when they had been off therapy for more than seven years, they still showed no signs of the virus rebounding.

The research, published in the journal PLoS Pathogens, follows news earlier this month about a baby girl in Mississippi in the United States being effectively cured of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) after receiving very early treatment.

Christine Rouzioux, a professor at Necker Hospital and University Paris Descartes and a member of the initial team who identified HIV 30 years ago, said the new results showed the number of infected cells circulating in the blood of these patients, known as "post-treatment controllers", kept falling even without treatment for many years.

"Early treatment in these patients may have limited the establishment of viral reservoirs, the extent of viral mutations, and preserved immune responses. A combination of those may contribute to control infection in post-treatment controllers," she said.

"The shrinking of viral reservoirs ... closely matches the definition of 'functional' cure," she said.

A functional cure describes when the virus is reduced to such low levels that it is kept at bay even without continuing treatment. The virus, however, is still detectable in the body.

Most of the some 34 million people with HIV across the world will have to take anti-AIDS drugs known as antiretroviral therapy for the whole of their lives. These drugs generally keep the disease in check but also have side effects and a high cost impact on health systems.

Worldwide, the number of people newly infected with HIV, which can be transmitted via blood and by semen during sex, is falling. At 2.5 million, the number of new infections in 2011 was 20 percent lower than in 2001, according to the United National AIDS programme (UNAIDS). And deaths from AIDS fell to 1.7 million in 2011, down from a peak of 2.3 million in 2005.

Asier Saez-Cirion, a senior HIV researcher at the Institut Pasteur in Paris, said that although most patients will not be able to control HIV, these results suggest that at least some may be able to if they get treatment early enough.

"(This data) and the Mississippi study strongly support early treatment initiation and may hold important clues for the development of a strategy to cure HIV or at least induce a long-term control without the need of antiretroviral treatment," he said.

(Editing by Ben Hirschler)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One of the most powerful members of the Congress - House Majority Leader Eric Cantor - signaled his support on Wednesday for maintaining the tax exemption of interest paid by municipal bonds, offering reassurance to the state and local governments that use the debt to finance infrastructure and other projects.

"The message was received at least in my office about the importance of that benefit," Cantor, who as the second most powerful Republican in the House has been key in most fiscal and tax debates in Congress, told a meeting of the National Association of State Treasurers.

"Lord knows we can't be pulling back on that right now given the current state of our infrastructure," added Cantor, who is from Virginia.

For more than two years, President Barack Obama has suggested limiting the exemption to increase federal tax revenues.

The idea gained traction at the end of 2012, when the "fiscal cliff" crisis sent the U.S. government scrambling to bring in money without raising taxes. Some political leaders have broached doing away with it altogether.

State and local leaders say capping or eliminating the exemption will cost them billions of dollars at a time when their revenues are only just now recovering from 2007-09 recession.

The chairman of the committee drafting a reform plan for the federal tax system, fellow Republican Dave Camp, has already said he does not support a cap on the exemption.

Investors are willing to accept less in interest payments from municipal bonds because of the exemption. That in turn keeps borrowing costs low for the issuers in the $3.7 trillion market using the bonds to finance infrastructure, schools and hospitals.

Cantor added a note of caution, saying he had recently met with members of a philanthropic organization lobbying Congress to preserve the deduction people take for donations to charities. The municipal bond tax break has "stiff competition," he said.

"You're up against the charitable deduction," he told the treasurers, who were visiting Capitol Hilln to press for the exemption. "The realtors are in town at some point. You're up against the realtors and the mortgage deduction."

In fiscal year 2011, the government missed out on collecting $30 billion in revenues because of the exemption, according to a Congressional Budget Office report.

(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)

MOSCOW, March 20 (Reuters) - The Russian FA ordered Terek Grozny on Wednesday to play their next home game at a neutral venue after Chechen Republic head Ramzan Kadyrov called the referee a "sellout" and a "donkey" over a loudspeaker.

The Chechen club was also fined 200,000 roubles ($6,500) for the failure to provide adequate security during Sunday's Russian league match against Rubin Kazan, the FA said on its website (www.rfs.ru).

Chechnya's strongman leader Kadyrov admitted to insulting FIFA referee Mikhail Vilkov over the loudspeaker after he sent off Terek captain Rizvan Utsyev late in the game.

Terek said they would appeal against the decision, with Kremlin-backed Kadyrov calling the sanctions "biased and unjust".

"I'm only a Terek fan, one of many," Kadyrov was quoted as saying by the local news agency Interfax.

"I'm not the club's boss nor am I the (Chechen FA) chief and I was at the stadium during my free time. I just expressed my own opinion about the referee.

"The only thing I regret is our fans won't be able to watch Terek's next game at our stadium. I think this decision to ban our stadium is biased and unjust."

Terek could play their next home game against champions Zenit St Petersburg next Sunday in other Northern Caucasus cities such as Makhachkala or Vladikavkaz, Kadyrov said.

He said a public fund, named after Kadyrov's late father Akhmat, who was assassinated by a bomb blast at Grozny's old stadium in May 2004, would pay for tickets, transportation and meals for the fans at a neutral ground.

"Our fans will get a chance to see Terek's next match no matter where it will be played," Kadyrov said.

Critics accuse Kadyrov of ignoring Russian law and running Chechnya like a fiefdom but President Vladimir Putin has relied upon him to rein in rebels and keep order in the mostly Muslim region, still plagued by militant attacks after two wars against separatists seeking to break from Russia. (Writing by Gennady Fyodorov; Additional reporting by Alexei Anishchuk; Editing by John Mehaffey)

What's more, researchers found blood pressure tests may not always be accurate among young people, or consistent from one reading to the next.

"At this point, the jury is out. We just don't know if this is worth doing or not," said Dr. Matthew Thompson, who led the new research at Oxford University in the UK.

"We desperately need research on how to diagnose kids with high blood pressure, which kids should be treated and what are the most effective treatments."

Thompson said although most U.S. children have their blood pressure measured at routine checkups, those readings are never taken on healthy kids in the UK.

His team reviewed the latest evidence on childhood blood pressure tests for the government-backed U.S. Preventive Services Task Force.

Thompson and his colleagues analyzed 34 studies covering diagnosis, treatment and long-term effects of high blood pressure in kids and teens. None of those answered the researchers' central question - whether screening can help prevent or delay cardiovascular disease in adults.

Accuracy of blood pressure readings from one measurement to the next was "modest at best," according to Thompson.

"The false positive rate means that most children who screen positive won't actually have high blood pressure," he told Reuters Health.

Among studies that tracked children and teens over time, researchers found anywhere from 19 to 65 percent of youth with high blood pressure also had hypertension as adults.

Seven studies tested seven different drugs for kids with hypertension and found they typically weren't any better at lowering blood pressure than a drug-free placebo pill. But those studies lasted only a few weeks - and children with hypertension would likely take the drugs for years.

"That's really not good enough evidence to know if they're effective and safe for decades," Thompson said.

Programs aiming to change young people's lifestyle, such as by encouraging them to be more active or eat less salt, also didn't have a clear effect, the researchers wrote this week in Pediatrics.

PART OF STANDARD CARE'

Based on the findings, the Task Force concluded in a draft recommendation that there isn't enough evidence to balance the benefits and harms of screening young people to prevent future disease.

The draft is available online for public comment for the next month here: http://bit.ly/uRZqMF.

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute recommends all children routinely get their blood pressure measured. But another recent review also concluded there isn't enough evidence to support blood pressure checks for kids, further stoking controversy on the issue (see Reuters Health story of Jan 7, 2013 here: http://reut.rs/V5FY63.)

Dr. Bonita Falkner, a pediatrician at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia who has studied hypertension, said she doesn't think the findings should change practice.

"It remains unknown how much hypertension in childhood contributes to (adult high blood pressure), but there is evidence it begins in childhood," Falkner, who wasn't involved in the review, told Reuters Health.

The researchers agreed there's a need for more studies to address the information gaps related to childhood blood pressure checks.

"It's been recommended for some time now that pediatricians measure blood pressure in children, starting at age three, as part of routine health assessments," she said. "It's pretty much become part of standard care."

Thompson said until more research is done, it's unclear what the right answer is on blood pressure checks for youth.

"To me, the evidence shows that it's not clear that screening or not screening is good or bad," he said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/WtBzqF Pediatrics, online February 25, 2013.