The third individual ever to be cured of HIV by stem cell transplantation is a man. The man reportedly had the stem cell transplant ten years ago and is now HIV-free, according to Metro UK. The Düsseldorf Patient, 53, was declared cured after four years of good health without anti-retroviral therapy (ART). In more developed nations, HIV patients receive this treatment frequently since it inhibits the virus to the point where, when taken regularly, no symptoms appear and it cannot spread to others.
The Berlin Patient and the London Patient were two additional people who received stem cell transplants before and were subsequently cured.
The Düsseldorf Patient developed leukaemia months after beginning ART, and all three patients required transplants because they all experienced acute blood problems after contracting HIV. The Düsseldorf Patient, who underwent his transplant in 2013 after receiving an HIV diagnosis in 2008, recalled the following: “I still clearly recall the advice of my family doctor: “Don’t take it too hard. Together, we’ll see that HIV can be treated.
I initially brushed off the statement as an alibi. As a result of my international medical team’s success in healing me of both leukemia and HIV at the same time, I am now even more proud of them.
The man, who asked to remain anonymous, said that he joined his donor “as guest of honor” to commemorate the 10th anniversary of his transplant on Valentine’s Day. During a stem cell transplant, harmful blood cells are removed and replaced with healthy stem cells, often taken from the bone marrow of another person. They pose a serious danger of problems from postoperative infections or from transplanted cells attacking healthy cells in the host’s body.
Owing to these risks, the are now only used in patients who also have other serious illnesses. Researchers are hopeful that the knowledge obtained from healing these individuals would aid future research into HIV remedies, even if it is doubtful that stem cell therapies will become publicly accessible very soon.
“After our thorough research, we can now demonstrate that it is essentially viable to inhibit the reproduction of HIV on a sustainable basis by combining two crucial approaches,” said Dr. Bjorn-Erik Ole Jensen of Düsseldorf University Hospital.
The HIV resistance is transferred from the donor immune system to the recipient, preventing the virus from having a chance to propagate once more. On the other hand, we have the extensive depletion of the virus reservoir in long-lived immune cells.
How this can be accomplished outside of the limited set of framework circumstances we have specified requires further study.
