Second Patient Cured Of HIV: What Do We Know?
News of the second patient treated for HIV first appeared in the media in 2019. Doctors have waited a whole year before singing victory and today, finally, the discovery of a definitive cure for this pathology seems more and more tangible.
The acronym HIV refers to the human immunodeficiency virus. Although it is often confused with AIDS, it is not the same: HIV is the virus, while AIDS is the final stage of infection, or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome.
HIV is a virus that attacks certain cells of the immune system by destroying them. Specifically, these are CD4 T lymphocytes, cells essential for our body and responsible for stimulating and coordinating many cells of our immune system.
HIV is a condition that affects a great many people around the world, nearly 39 million according to estimates. Today we will talk to you about the second patient treated for HIV and how the treatment came about.
The story of the second patient treated for HIV
The second patient treated for HIV is called the London patient . The first case, the so-called Berlin patient, was treated around 2008. It should be stressed that the concept of definitive cure has always been used with caution.
The HIV virus remains inside our organism in a chronic way. It destroys CD4 T lymphocytes making our immune systems weaker and unable to respond to infections.
The course of HIV is complex and if it is not treated in time it can lead to AIDS, which is the phase in which an acquired immunodeficiency exists. Until recently, it was considered impossible to obtain a complete cure for this condition.
Antiretroviral therapies are aimed at keeping the infection under control, so as to reduce the risk of transmission of the virus and its reproduction within the body. Thanks to these treatments, people living with HIV have a better life expectancy.
Patient cured of HIV, how is this possible?
Both the first and second patients treated for HIV underwent a stem cell transplant. In the second patient’s case, the transplant was performed to treat Hodgkin’s lymphoma. This was in 2016.
Stem cell transplantation allows the patient ‘s cells to be replaced with those of the donor. However, if it had been any transplant, the patient would have continued to have the HIV virus.
The difference lies in the fact that the chosen donor had a specific genetic mutation in the white blood cells, which made them resistant to the virus and prevented them from becoming infected.
In doing so, as the donor cells replaced those of the patient, the patient acquired an ever greater resistance to HIV. The virus could no longer enter cells or replicate within her body. Slowly, it ends up disappearing.
What does this event imply for medicine?
Thanks to this surgery, the second patient treated for HIV has now stopped treatment for 30 months. The virus left no trace in his body. For this, doctors are beginning to confirm complete recovery.
This event marks a fundamental step forward in the history of medicine. HIV continues to be a very serious worldwide infection today. Although more and more treatments and forms of prevention are known, its mortality rate is still high.
The fact that there is a second patient treated for HIV allows for a much more confident view on the discovery of a possible effective cure for the infection. Now all that remains is to continue the search to find more precise ways to cure the problem.
