WASHINGTON (Washington Insider Magazine) – On Tuesday, researchers announced that an HIV-positive American lady, identified as a middle-aged mixed-race woman, had likely been cured after undergoing a novel transplant surgery utilizing donated umbilical cord blood.
Following a groundbreaking operation in which she was genetically paired with umbilical cord stem cells that included an HIV-resistant mutation, the woman, who required a stem cell transplant for leukemia, allegedly created a new HIV-resistant immune system.
According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, she was part of a trial that began in 2015 to track the results of 25 HIV-positive patients in the United States who had a transplant.
According to ABC NEWS, the study’s lead author, Dr. Yvonne Bryson, an infectious disease physician at UCLA, shared their findings as well as the patient’s health at the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections this week.
While utilizing genetically-matched umbilical cord blood with an HIV-resistant variation opens the door to more varied populations and studies, Bryson verified that there is currently no standard screening for this mutation in the United States.
While there is no directly relevant cure for HIV on a global scale, HIV therapy has advanced tremendously over the years, allowing people to live normal and healthy lives.
If an HIV-positive individual begins HIV therapy and lowers the infection in their system to an insignificant level, they will not be able to transmit the infection to anybody as long as they stay on the treatment or medicine.
The very first long-acting injectable medication for HIV prophylaxis was authorized by the US Food and Drug Administration last month.
Until recently, the only HIV prevention or pre-exposure prophylaxis (also known as PrEP) drugs regulated and authorized by the FDA were daily tablets that slowed the course of an HIV infection in the body.
PrEP is normally used on a regular basis to build up in a person’s system to the point where it inhibits the virus from multiplying and spreading across the body if they have HIV.
According to recent CDC statistics, PrEP programs lower the chance of contracting HIV through intercourse by roughly 99 percent when used as directed. Individuals who believe they are at risk of contracting HIV can now choose between taking the daily tablet or getting a fresh shot every 2 months following two initiation injections spaced one month apart.
Moderna has reported the start of early-stage clinical studies for an HIV mRNA vaccine. The injection, which employs the same technology as Moderna’s breakthrough COVID-19 vaccine, was developed in collaboration with the charity International AIDS Vaccine Initiative, according to ABC News.
