A new case of HIV cure was announced on Monday February 20 after the publication of the work of several virologists in the journal Nature Medicine. After a bone marrow transplant, the so-called “Dusseldorf patient” no longer shows any trace of the virus in his body. This is the third time that this medical strategy has been proven against HIV.
The study published Monday, February 20 in the journal NatureMedicine start very carefully. The transplantation of cells containing the CCR5 gene has already made it possible to cure two patients, one in Berlin in 2009 and the other in London in 2019.
CCR5 is the name of a mutation that prevents the AIDS virus (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) from taking hold in the body. But on the one hand, less than 1% of the world’s population would have it. And on the other hand, when transplantation is possible, recovery is far from guaranteed.
But for the 53-year-old man followed at the University Hospital in Düsseldorf, Germany, the bone marrow transplant worked. It was to cure blood cancer that the operation had been planned. The patient received a stem cell transplant to treat leukemia, then was able to interrupt his antiretroviral treatment against HIV, described the international consortium IciStem, of which the Institut Pasteur is a partner.
The only two patients cured by this method previously also suffered from leukemia. ” It is an exceptional situation when all these factors coincide for this transplant to be a double success in curing leukemia and HIV. “Explained in a press release the virologist Asier Sáez-Cirión, one of the authors of the study.
If the cases of remission bring hope to researchers, a bone marrow transplant remains a very heavy, risky operation and not adaptable to most HIV carriers. According to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS, in 2021 approximately 650,000 people died of AIDS-related illnesses. It is estimated that more than 40 million people have died from AIDS since the start of the epidemic.
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