- A London patient has become the second person to be ‘cleared’ of the HIV virus after receiving a bone marrow transplant
- An American, Timothy Brown, is the first known patient to be functionally cured of HIV
- While the bone marrow method offers hope for new treatment strategies, it is not appropriate for all HIV-infected patients
After receiving a bone marrow transplant from an HIV resistant donor, a London patient has become the second known man to be cleared of the AIDS virus, according to his doctor.
Since undergoing the transplant operation three years ago, the patient – name withheld - has shown no trace of previous HIV infection, Xinhua reports.
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Legit.ng gathers that Ravindra Gupta, a professor and HIV biologist who co-led a team of doctors treating the man, said: “There is no virus there that we can measure. We can’t detect anything.”
However, instead of saying the patient was ‘cured’, Gupta described him as ‘functionally cured’ and ‘in remission’. He said it’s too early to say the patient is cured.
Timothy Brown, an American man who also underwent similar treatment in Germany in 2007, is the first known patient to be functionally cured of HIV.
Both patients received bone marrow stem cells from donors with a rare genetic mutation known as “CCR5 delta 32,” which confers resistance to HIV.
However, between Brown and the London patient, there have been other attempts by scientists to cure other AIDS patients using the same method. All the attempts failed.
While the method offers hope for new treatment strategies, Gupta has stated that it is not appropriate for all HIV-infected patients.
It may not necessarily be effective, specifically for patients carrying the CXCR4 gene.
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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the federal government confirmed a report which ranked Nigeria first on the list of countries with high records of mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS throughout the world.
The government confirmed local and international indices that affirmed that Nigeria produces 30 percent of children born with HIV/AIDS internationally.
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