Apoorva Mandavilli - HIV is reported cured in a second patient, a milestone in the global AIDS epidemic
For just the second
time since the global epidemic began, a patient appears to have been cured of
infection with HIV, 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 HIV infection is possible, if difficult, researchers
said.
The investigators are
to publish their report 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 HIV.
Bone-marrow transplantation
is unlikely to be a realistic treatment option in the near future. Powerful
drugs are now available to control HIV 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 HIV 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.”
Wensing is co-leader
of IciStem, a consortium of European scientists studying stem cell transplants
to treat HIV 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 HIV infection was “surreal.. read more:
