Is there a strong reason to be sceptical about the "cured HIV patient" being reported by mainstream media?
Western Blot tests on young children are practically useless, since they test for antibodies. The child will likely have antibodies passed down by the HIV+ mother, regardless of whether the child has HIV. The test will show the antibodies, which may be mistaken for an active immune response from the child. As such, there will be a high false-positive rate on such tests.


The mother's T-cells are in the fetus anyways (15/18 Fetal lymph nodes contained T-reg cells). If the mother is infected and left untreated (as was the case with the Mississippi child), then the viral load is going to be high. The chances of it passing to the fetus are going to be high as a result.


  Using PCR to attempt to identify a lack of HIV is flawed, since it may lay dormant in a small colony of T-cells until a secondary immune response is triggered, causing a new outbreak. As such, it is very difficult to show that a patient is "cured".


"Flawed" is the wrong word. The argument is built into the tests. The child was functionally cured - which means below detectable levels instead of "completely nonexistent within the body." Yes, it's entirely possible that the HIV is hiding somewhere in the body and could make a reappearance, but at the moment it's not showing any significant titer in the blood.

I don't think there's been a test developed that can assess the entire body to find the lone viral capsid left.

However - that isn't to say that the "cure" has been found. So far it's a single person cured this way. One. That makes it a case study, not a therapy, treatment, vaccine, or even reasonable assessment that it's possible to do again.