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H.I.V. Is Reported Cured in a Second Patient


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H.I.V. Is Reported Cured in a Second Patient, a Milestone in the Global AIDS Epidemic

Scientists have long tried to duplicate the procedure that led to the first long-term remission 12 years ago. With the so-called London patient, they seem to have succeeded.

By Apoorva Mandavilli | March 4, 2019

For just the second time since the global epidemic began, a patient appears to have been cured of infection with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS.

The news comes nearly 12 years to the day after the first patient known to be cured, a feat that researchers have long tried, and failed, to duplicate. The surprise success now confirms that a cure for H.I.V. infection is possible, if difficult, researchers said.

The investigators are to publish their report on Tuesday in the journal Nature and to present some of the details at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Seattle.

Publicly, the scientists are describing the case as a long-term remission. In interviews, most experts are calling it a cure, with the caveat that it is hard to know how to define the word when there are only two known instances.

Both milestones resulted from bone-marrow transplants given to infected patients. But the transplants were intended to treat cancer in the patients, not H.I.V.

Bone-marrow transplantation is unlikely to be a realistic treatment option in the near future. Powerful drugs are now available to control H.I.V. infection, while the transplants are risky, with harsh side effects that can last for years.

But rearming the body with immune cells similarly modified to resist H.I.V. might well succeed as a practical treatment, experts said.

“This will inspire people that cure is not a dream,” said Dr. Annemarie Wensing, a virologist at the University Medical Center Utrecht in the Netherlands. “It’s reachable.”

Dr. Wensing is co-leader of IciStem, a consortium of European scientists studying stem cell transplants to treat H.I.V. infection. The consortium is supported by AMFAR, the American AIDS research organization.

The new patient has chosen to remain anonymous, and the scientists referred to him only as the “London patient.”

“I feel a sense of responsibility to help the doctors understand how it happened so they can develop the science,” he told The New York Times in an email.

Learning that he could be cured of both cancer and H.I.V. infection was “surreal” and “overwhelming,” he added. “I never thought that there would be a cure during my lifetime.”

At the same conference in 2007, a German doctor described the first such cure in the “Berlin patient,” later identified as Timothy Ray Brown, 52, who now lives in Palm Springs, Calif.

That news, displayed on a poster at the back of a conference room, initially gained little attention. Once it became clear that Mr. Brown was cured, scientists set out to duplicate his result with other cancer patients infected with H.I.V.

Read More:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/health/aids-cure-london-patient.html

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37 minutes ago, karbatal said:

Wow imagine the illness can be cured? It's fantastic how much has been discovered about aids in only 30 years!!!! 

True! Makes me feel even more sad for those who died during the first 10-15 years.

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10 hours ago, Lolo said:

I just heard about it, that’s amazing. I just hope it doesn’t send the wrong signals and people start to act careless again. 

It has already started.

Ever since the availability of prep, lots of gays have decided not to use condom but they fail to realize there's other STD aside from HIV.

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While this is certainly a good thing, it has been said that this is most definately not a cure. Keep in mind, those bone-marrow transplantations were meant to treat cancer, not HIV. It appears that in both cases, the patients were "cured", the bone-marrow came from HIV resistent donors. I would like to believe that HIV resistance is a rarity so donations on large scale are rather unlikely. Furthermore it is not known how this procedure would work with HIV infected but otherwise healthy patients. We may not find out anyway since a bone-marrow transplantation is a highly agressive, to a certain point life threathening procedure. That's why it is often used with very ill patients only, as a last ditch effort.  That said, it may be a new (?) approach to find a cure wich hopefully comes sooner than later.

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12 hours ago, Raider of the lost Ark said:

While this is certainly a good thing, it has been said that this is most definately not a cure. Keep in mind, those bone-marrow transplantations were meant to treat cancer, not HIV. It appears that in both cases, the patients were "cured", the bone-marrow came from HIV resistent donors. I would like to believe that HIV resistance is a rarity so donations on large scale are rather unlikely. Furthermore it is not known how this procedure would work with HIV infected but otherwise healthy patients. We may not find out anyway since a bone-marrow transplantation is a highly agressive, to a certain point life threathening procedure. That's why it is often used with very ill patients only, as a last ditch effort.  That said, it may be a new (?) approach to find a cure wich hopefully comes sooner than later.

In addition, the foreign immunity cell may clash with your own immunity system and results in even more severe situation.

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