DENVER – US health experts reportedly claimed to cure the human immunodeficiency virus in a woman patient for the first time in medical history.
A middle-aged woman of mixed race is believed to be the third person in the world, and the first woman, to be cured of a contagious virus. The woman now remained virus-free for more than a year.
The research team at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunisitic Infections in the US city of Denver said the patient was being treated for leukemia when she received a stem cell transplant.
As the woman gets a transplant, she developed a new HIV-resistant immune system following a breakthrough procedure in which she was genetically matched with umbilical cord stem cells that contained an HIV-resistant mutation.
However, the medical professionals termed the transplant method too risky to be suitable for most people with immunodeficiency virus.
In the complex medical process, physicians eliminate the original immune system with chemotherapy and sometimes irradiation and then transplanted HIV-resistant stem cells engrafted.
The top infectious disease physician, who led the study, shared the finding along with the patient’s condition at the conference earlier this week. “Today, we reported the third known case of HIV remission and the first woman following a stem cell transplant and using HIV-resistant cells,” he said in a presser.
He also maintained that a common stem cell transplant side effect, graft-versus-host disease, in which the donor immune system attacks the recipient’s immune system, played a key role in ending the virus in the woman.
Earlier, only two men have been cured of human immunodeficiency virus via stem cell transplant or bone marrow.
