March 11, 2019.
A British patient has just recovered from AIDS. This medical miracle would have been made possible thanks to a transplant of stem cells.
Stem cell transplant reportedly saved patient from HIV
The Berlin patient is therefore indeed not an anomaly. It is in these terms that Ravindra Gupa, professor at the University of Cambridge, formalized the cure of the HIV of a second patient, remained anonymous, in London. 11 years after the recovery of German Timothy Brown, HIV has just been defeated by a second person, and this finding could help physicians to engage in promising therapies.
Like Timothy Brown a few years ago, this British patient also received a stem cell transplant from a donor, who showed a mutation in a gene that protected the recipient’s cells from entry of the virus.
Already 35 million dead from HIV
According to the conclusions given by the doctors who followed this patient, the latter, who was on antiretroviral treatment, continued his treatment for 16 months after his transplant. It was after analyzes that they proved that no trace of HIV was detectable in the patient’s blood, making him the second patient in the world to recover from HIV.
The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) remains today, despite scientific advances, one of the main public health problems in the world. In 2016, according to figures from the World Health Organization (WHO), 36.7 million people were living with HIV worldwide. In that year, the virus is believed to have infected 1.8 million people and, to date, more than 35 million people have died from the disease.
Gaelle Latour
Read also: In the United States, researchers manage to cure mice of AIDS
