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The infection was caused by a fungus, a type of yeast called Candida albicans

It is normally found in the vagina, living in balance with bacteria and other microbes. But illness or some medications can disrupt the balance, allowing for a problematic overgrowth of the yeasts.

The surgeons said that since yeasts normally inhabit the genital tract, they could have come from either the donor or the recipient.

The lecithin study, published Wednesday in The New England Journal of Medicine, is part of a growing appreciation of the role the body’s bacteria play in health and disease. With heart disease, investigators have long focused on the role of diet and heart disease, but expanding the scrutiny to bacteria adds a new dimension.

“Heart disease perhaps involves microbes in our gut,”

A new research led by Dr Kimberley Seed from the Tufts University School of Medicine provides the first evidence that bacteriophages – viruses that infect and replicate within bacteria – can acquire a wholly functional and adaptive immune system.

The study, published today in the journal Nature, finds that a viral predator of the cholera bacteria can steal the functional immune system of bacteria and use it against its bacterial host.

Developing phage therapy is particularly important because some bacteria, called superbugs, are resistant to most or all current antibiotics.

Doctors in the US have made medical history by effectively curing a child born with HIV, the first time such a case has been documented.

Dr Hannah Gay, who cared for the child at the University of Mississippi medical centre, told the Guardian the case amounted to the first "functional cure" of an HIV-infected child.

but it is likely that a tiny amount remains in their body.

If the report is confirmed, the child born in Mississippi would be only the second well-documented case of a cure in the world

Typically a newborn with an infected mother would be given one or two drugs as a prophylactic measure. But Dr. Gay said that based on her experience, she almost immediately used a three-drug regimen aimed at treatment, not prophylaxis, not even waiting for the test results confirming infection.

Virus levels rapidly declined with treatment and were undetectable by the time the baby was a month old. That remained the case until the baby was 18 months old, after which the mother stopped coming to the hospital and stopped giving the drugs.

In response to Pushpendra jain's comments... I am no longer amazed of anything in pediatrics. In 15 years of primary care suburban practice I have learned the following: I am an antibiotic nazi especially if i do not treat by telephone request, my medical expertise is compromised by my financial gains or relationships with pharmaceutical companies, my patients' parents do more "research" than I do--AKA reading a google searched internet account, I should be available at their whim and see them at a time convenient to their kid's soccer schedule as a walk-in service, and parents that think nothing of texting while driving their kids to said soccer game think that a 1 in 10,000-100,000 risk of a vaccination obviates its well documented scientific benefits. We are in a cycle where people no longer believe in science, but they'll be back when we see resurgences of diseases i haven't seen since medical school.

Dr. Segedy, I can assure you that your sentiments were shared by a majority of the attendees at the AAP conference. It seems as though we have gotten to a point where the element of surprise no longer exists; health care providers (for the most part) are numb to the fact that studies with ulterior motives (ie, Wakefield & vaccines/autism) and "celebrities" seem to have more of an impact on health care decisions than physicians who have dedicated their entire lives studying medicine. And when it comes to self diagnosing via Dr. Google, Offit specifically mentioned that a website like the "National Vaccine Information Center" (NCVIC.org) comes up on the first page of Google for a search for "vaccines" and yet the information on the website is extremely misleading and, in some cases, downright wrong. But that doesn't stop people from treating it as credible; after all, it's on the Internet so it must be true!