Argentinian doctors have just announced the spontaneous recovery, without stem cell treatment, of a 30-year-old woman who suffered from AIDS. 8 years after being diagnosed for the first time, this patient from Esperanza, Argentina, no longer shows any signs of infection or any signs of the active presence of HIV in her body.
Doctors analyzed blood samples taken from this HIV-positive patient between 2017 and 2020. “No further traces of HIV were detected despite the analysis of massive numbers of blood cells and tissues. This suggests that this patient may have naturally obtained a sterilizing cure of the infection “underlines the researchers in the journal Annals of internal medicine. In addition, she delivered a healthy HIV negative baby in March 2020.
This woman is the second patient who appears to be cured without having received any treatment. The previous one was a 67-year-old Californian. They are both what doctors call “elite controllers”, that is, HIV-positive person without any detectable viral load, although they have never taken anti-HIV drugs. Researchers aren’t sure how their bodies apparently got rid of an intact, replicating virus, but believe it is a combination of different immune mechanisms that cytotoxic T cells are likely involved in.
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