JAKARTA, PEDOMANMEDIA – A man in Switzerland who has been diagnosed with HIV infection since 1990, has been declared ‘cured’. The man, nicknamed the Geneva patient, was in long-term HIV remission after receiving stem cell treatment in 2018.
In 2018, the man received a stem cell transplant to fight a highly aggressive and malignant form of leukemia. His case is unique, because he is the only one of five other patients to receive stem cells from a donor who does not have a rare mutation of the CCR5 gene.
The gene is useful for blocking HIV from entering a person’s immune system, as well as making cells naturally immune to the virus.
Even though the transplant was not from someone carrying the CCR5 gene, the man in his 50s was still declared ‘cured’ of HIV with undetectable virus after stopping antiretroviral medication or drugs that work to reduce the amount of virus in the blood.
The man was on antiretroviral therapy until November 2021, and doctors ordered him to stop after undergoing a bone marrow or stem cell transplant.
“What happened to me was amazing, magical,” he was quoted as saying by Euronews, in a statement.
Although until now the man in Switzerland was declared ‘cured’ after stopping antiretroviral drugs, researchers are not completely sure that HIV will not return to patients.
Because before that, there were two HIV cases in Boston using stem cells that didn’t contain the CCR5 gene, and the virus came back a few months after they stopped taking antiretrovirals.
“If there are still no signs of the virus after 12 months the chances of it going undetected in the future will increase significantly,” said Asier Saez-Cirion, a scientist at France’s Pasteur Institute who presented the case in Brisbane.
“The Geneva patient remains HIV ‘free’ because perhaps the transplant removed all infected cells without needing the well-known mutation or perhaps her immunosuppressive treatment, which is required after transplant, played a role,” he said.
2023-07-23 03:22:46
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