Progress Highlighted as Fifth Person Cured of HIV
Researchers in Germany announced a fifth person has been cured of HIV.
In a study published in Nature Medicine, researchers from University Hospital Düsseldorf detailed the treatment of the 53-year-old patient,
Progress Highlighted as Fifth Person Cured of HIV
Researchers in Germany announced a fifth person has been cured of HIV.
In a study published in Nature Medicine, researchers from University Hospital Düsseldorf detailed the treatment of the 53-year-old patient, known as “the Düsseldorf patient” to protect his privacy, who was diagnosed with HIV in 2008 and acute myeloid leukemia three years later. He received a stem cell transplant in 2013 as part of his treatment for the cancer – which also cured him of HIV.
Despite the development, a widespread cure for the virus, which attacks the body’s immune system, may still be a long way out.
“It’s definitely promising, however, it’s unlikely that stem cell transplants would be performed for people living with HIV who do not have leukemia,” said Dr. William R. Short, the chair of the Board of Directors for the American Academy of HIV Medicine.
Stem cell transplants are most often used to treat people with leukemia and lymphoma by replacing damaged or destroyed blood cells with donor blood cells. The procedure is considered risky as it has high morbidity and mortality rates.
The case was rare because the female donor had a mutation called CCR5Δ32 that is believed to confer resistance to the HIV infection, said Short, who is the associate director of the AIDS Clinical Trial Unit research site at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Because the mutation has a frequency of about 10% in populations of European descent it is difficult to find potential donors who both carry the mutation and are a match for the patient.
The research does, however, show that HIV treatment and therapies have radically changed in the last thirty years.
“There was a time in this world where if you were diagnosed with HIV, you didn’t really have long to live,” said Bishar Jenkins Jr., the policy director for AIDS United. “And it’s stunning, the progress that we’ve made over the past decades.”
When someone is diagnosed with HIV today treatment is started right away, sometimes as soon as the day of diagnosis.
Doctors prescribe patients with what is known as combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), which uses a minimum of two drugs, usually three, from different drug classes that target two separate aspects of the virus’s lifecycle. The therapy paralyzes the virus and prevents it from infecting other cells.
“There was a time in this world where if you were diagnosed w