2023-07-20 17:01:00
A man who has had HIV since the 90s has just been considered cured of the virus after a long remission. Followed at the University Hospitals of Geneva in Switzerland, he had benefited from a bone marrow transplant. This is the sixth case of HIV remission in the world.
Known as the “patient of Geneva”, this man who had been infected with HIV for thirty years was considered cured. This Thursday, his case was presented in Brisbane, Australia, where the International AIDS Society Conference will take place this Sunday.
Each donor had the rare CCR5 delta 32 gene mutation
This is the sixth case of HIV remission. In long remission since his bone marrow transplant, this patient was followed at the University Hospitals of Geneva in Switzerland.
Five people before him had been able to recover from the deadly virus. Thanks to a certain common point. All were suffering from blood cancers and were able to benefit from a stem cell transplant, renewing their immune system in depth. And the donor each time had the rare mutation in the so-called CCR5 delta 32 gene, a genetic mutation known to prevent HIV from entering cells, according to the Parisian.
A special case
But the situation of this new patient in remission is different. His stem cell transplant to treat his leukemia in 2018 was not from a donor with the CCR5 mutation. On the contrary, the donor stem cells allowed HIV to reproduce. But 20 months after her antiretroviral treatment, the virus was still undetectable.
How to explain this situation ? Scientists do not exclude the possibility that the virus is still present in the patient. After stopping his treatment in 2021, for 20 months, analyzes were carried out. None detected viral particles or an increase in immune responses against the virus in the patient’s body.
Several hypotheses to explain this phenomenon have been put forward. And for the moment we can only note that this long remission is encouraging. But Sharon Lewin, president of the International AIDS Society Conference, warned “a single virion can lead to a rebound of the virus” and added that the human “will need to be watched closely over the next few months or even years. The likelihood of a rebound is impossible to predict, according to the HuffingtonPost.
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