London HIV patients becomes world’s second to be cleared of AIDS virus
It came out as a surprise for world healthcare agencies when an HIV-positive London has been cleared off AIDS virus completely following a bone marrow transplant from an HIV resistant donor. The doctors have confirmed the news. Three years after receiving the bone marrow stem cells from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that resists the HIV infection and more than a year and half after coming off antiretroviral drugs, the tests have shown no trace of man’s previous HIV infection.
"There is no virus there that we can measure. We can't detect anything,” said Ravindra Gupta, a professor and HIV biologist who assisted the team of doctors treating the man.
This case, which happens to be the second of its kind, is an indication that with the help of science one day we will be able to end HIV AIDS. However, this doesn’t mean that a cure for HIV AIDS has been found.
It's too early to say if the he’s cured of HIV AIDS. He is functionally cured and in remission as described by Gupta.
Similarly, an American man Timothy Brown, who came to be known as the Berlin patient when he underwent a similar treatment for HIV in 2007, which led to similar results. Brown has been HIV-free ever since.
Around 35 million people in the world are infected with HIV and the AIDS pandemic has consumed the life of around 35 million people since it came to life in the 1980s. The scientific researches have led to a development of drug combinations that can keep the virus at bay in most patients.
