In England, an HIV patient has been cleared of the virus. This makes him the second person in the world to have defeated the deadly disease for the time being. The doctors used a stem cell transplant.
It is a sensation in the world of medicine: In London, a team of doctors succeeded in completely ridding HIV patients of the viruses. This is what scientists report in the journal Nature .
The affected HIV patient, who was diagnosed with the disease in 2003, was transplanted with bone marrow stem cells from a donor. For almost 19 months he is now virus free. “We have so far no HI virus detected. But it is still too early to call it a cure,” said the study author and biologist Ravindra Gupta from the Cambridge University .
Free from HIV for 19 months
The stem cell donor has a genetic change that makes him resistant to HIV infection of a particular strain. By transplanting his stem cells to the HIV patient, this apparently also became resistant to the HI virus.
Bone marrow transplantation was followed by a so-called antiretroviral therapy. That means: drug treatment for 16 months. The drugs halted the proliferation of HIV-infected cells.
Further information about the patient, the scientists do not announce due to the preservation of his privacy. He is now known as the “London Patient”.
Berlin patient, London patient, Mississippi baby
The first person to be cleared of HIV was Timothy Ray Brown, a ” Berlin patient ” who suffered from leukemia and was treated at the Charité Berlin-Steglitz in 2008. He also received a stem cell transplant from an HIV-resistant donor. However, this mutation of the so-called CCR5 gene is very rare, we are talking about a stroke of luck.
However, a complete cure can not (yet) be the case. In two other cases, a patient from Essen and the ” Mississippi Baby”, those affected were initially considered cured, but the HI virus returned after some time (the Mississippi baby about two years).
Stem cell transplantation is regarded as a massive surgical procedure with high risks for the patient (and possibly also the donor). Therefore, transplantation in HIV patients is only an option if it is able to cure another disease of the patient. In the case of the London patient, it was lymph node cancer. For patients who “only” have HIV, stem cell transplantation is too risky.