Researchers May Have Cured HIV in a Woman For the First Time
As per a report by NBC News, a group of researchers from the USA has possibly cured HIV in a woman for the first time in human history. The researchers used their experience to analyze past successes and failures to come up with a new cutting-edge stem cell transplant method that uses special stem cells with a rare genetic abnormality that grants a natural resistance to the cells that the immunodeficiency viruses target. They believe that this treatment can be expanded to a pool of at least a dozen people annually, going forward.
There were only two cases in which researchers have been able to cure HIV-affected patients in the past. However, in both the previous cases, the patients were male. In this case, the researchers were able to achieve success using the stem transplant method in a woman for the first time. The patient becomes only the third person to be cured of HIV.
However, there are some fatal side effects of the treatment and the researchers say that it is not for any or every HIV-affected patient in the world. The stem transplant method actually replaces one’s immune system with another person’s system, making it a risky process. This results in some kind of cancer in the patients with an increased fatality rate.
Some experts have termed this unethical as the treatment could be a toxic and fatal procedure for a patient. Dr. Deborah Persaud, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the John Hopkins University School of Medicine commends the new case of a possible HIV cure, she states that the stem transplant method is “still not a feasible strategy for all but a handful of the millions of people living with HIV.”
Nonetheless, the director of the Division of AIDS at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, Carl Dieffenbach said that HIV-curing success stories like this continue to provide hope. “It’s important that there continues to be success along this line,” added Dieffenbach.
