A WOMAN living in the US, a middle-aged patient with leukemia, was reportedly cured of HIV after receiving stem cell transplant.
In a report from Reuters, this makes the woman, who is of mixed race, the first female and the third person to be cured of HIV through the stem cell transplant approach where the donor is naturally resistant to the virus that causes AIDS, according to researchers.
Her case was presented at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections currently being held in Denver, Colorado in the USA.
The approach employed on the woman involved the use of umbilical cord blood, a first and newer one with a strong possibility of making this type of treatment available to many people.
The woman had acute myeloid leukemia, a type of cancer that starts in blood-forming cells in the bone marrow. She is now reported to be in remission and free of the virus for 14 months already after receiving the cord blood. There was also no need for the woman to undergo antiretroviral therapy, a known HIV treatment procedure.
The two other patients who received adult stem cells and later on were cured of HIV were two males, a Caucasian and a Latino
In a statement, Sharon Lewin, President-elect of the International AIDS Society, said bone marrow transplants are not a viable strategy to cure most people living with HIV. However, she said the case of the woman “confirms that a cure for HIV is possible and further strengthens using gene therapy as a viable strategy for an HIV cure.”