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New treatment to cure HIV in sight?
A medical team recently reported treating an English man from the IH virus. The English patient has not shown any detectable signs of the virus for 18 months. He is the second known person in the world to be cured of HIV. The virus triggers the fatal terminal illness.
A team of doctors in England recently released a patient from the dangerous human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Apparently, the treatment was a positive side effect of an anticancer therapy. The man was suffering from Hodgkin's disease, a malignant tumor of the lymphatic system. For treatment, he received a stem cell transplant that simultaneously released him from the IH virus. The reason: the donor had a natural mutation that protects him from certain types of HIV. This mutation was transmitted by the gift to the patient and healed him as well. This extraordinary case has recently been presented in the journal Nature.
A rare mutation suppresses IH viruses
As doctors say, this is the second case of this type: a decade ago, a Berliner was already cured of HIV in the same way. Both patients were treated with stem cell transplants from donors carrying a genetic mutation repressing the CCR5 HIV receptor.
For 18 months without signs of HIV
The English patient has stopped antiretroviral treatment for HIV for 18 months and no longer shows any demonstrable signs of the disease. Nevertheless, doctors are cautious: "It is still too early to say for sure that he has cured of HIV and that his health status is being monitored," write University College London doctors on the case. rare.
There is currently no cure for HIV
"For now, the only way to treat HIV is to take drugs that suppress the virus," says Professor Ravindra Gupta in a press release. People living with HIV currently depend on drugs for their entire lives. This poses a major challenge, especially in developing countries: nearly 37 million people worldwide are living with HIV and about one million people still die each year. "It is particularly difficult to find a way to completely eliminate IH viruses because the virus integrates with white blood cells of the host," says the professor.
About the exceptional English patient
The English patient, who wishes to remain anonymous at his own request, has been infected with HIV since 2003. In 2012, he was also diagnosed with advanced Hodgkin's lymphoma. In addition to chemotherapy, he underwent a stem cell transplant in 2016. With this transplantation, the mutation entered the patient's body. The mutation with the complicated name of the CCR5 Δ32 allele ensures that HIV-1 pathogens can no longer enter the host cells because the required CCR5 receptor is inaccessible.
35 months after the transplant
The patient continued taking anti-HIV drugs for 16 months after the transplant. Then, the clinical team and patient decided to discontinue antiretroviral therapy to check for HIV-1 remission. For 18 months he has stopped taking medication and regular tests confirm that no virus is detectable.
New approach to HIV treatment
"By remission in a second patient using a similar approach, we showed that the Berlin patient was not an anomaly," says Professor Gupta. Nevertheless, this procedure is not suitable as a standard treatment for HIV. The side effects of the therapy are too serious. Nevertheless, other research suggests gene therapy for HIV treatment. "If we continue our research, we must understand if we can eliminate this receptor in people living with HIV," said Professor Gupta. The apparent success of the stem cell transplant offers new hope for a long-awaited treatment for HIV and AIDS. You can find more information on HIV in the article "Sexual Diseases". (Vb)
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