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A woman in the United States has apparently been cured of HIV with the help of a new treatment method.
Compared to a stem cell transplant, which was previously known to be the only cure for the virus, the new method is considered to be much gentler.
So far, only two other people, both men, have been medically cured of HIV this way.
A formerly HIV-positive woman appears to have been cured of HIV after an unusual and comparatively gentle transplant technique using a newborn’s umbilical cord blood.
Details of the case were first revealed last week in the course of the “Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections”, an annual scientific meeting. the „New York Times“ reported about it.
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“This is not only the first case of a cord blood transplant, but also the first time that a woman and a non-white person have been treated,” said a statement from the treating institution, Weill Cornell Medicine.
The patient received this special form of blood transplantation in August 2017 from a donor who was immune to HIV due to a gene mutation. This mutation occurs particularly in Europe.
The patient was being treated for leukemia
Originally, the woman had received the blood cell transplant to treat acute leukemia. In addition to the cord blood, she was given some blood stem cells from a first-degree relative, which should help her body accept the treatment better.
“Transplanting a relative is like a bridge that allows cord blood to take over control in the body,” Marshall Glesby, an infectious disease expert and part of Weill Cornell’s team, told the New York Times.
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One benefit of cord blood is that it is more adaptable than adult blood. As a result, patient and donor do not necessarily have to be immunologically congruent.
“After a period of time, the patient discontinued her antiretroviral medication to suppress her HIV infection. Since then, 14 months have passed without the virus reappearing,” Weill Cornell said in a statement. This indicates a “probable cure”, but at this stage scientists are more likely to speak of a “long-term decay” of the virus. There have also been no signs of leukemia for more than four years.
The new case gives reason for hope. However, experts emphasize that this type of cancer treatment is unlikely to become established as a method for curing HIV. It is too time-consuming and risky for that.
Previous approaches to healing
The only other people previously considered cured of HIV are known by the names ‘the Berlin patient’ (Timothy Ray Brown, 1966-2020) and ‘the London patient’. Both received traditional stem cell transplants.
In addition, at least two cases of natural HIV cure have been reported within the past two years. For some time after the diagnosis, no HIV virus could be detected in either of the patients without a special healing method being used.
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This text was translated from English by Anika Faber. It was last updated on February 19, 2022. You can find the original here.