Breakthrough In The Medical World: Spain Finds Effective Cure For HIV
As we all know, HIV has been a very rampant disease as of lately. As our world continues to grow and harbors more people with every passing day, we have finally come to a breakthrough for a cure to the HIV virus. Doctors within Barcelona, Spain believe that they have unearthed a cure using blood transplants from the umbilical cords of individuals that have a generic resistance to HIV. They have proven this to be effective with the case of one patient so far.
A 37-year-old man also from Barcelona, has been infected with HIV since 2009 and was then cured of the condition entirely after receiving a blood transplant. With the unfortunate truth of him perishing due to cancer three years later, having lymphoma, the Spanish medical team has been encouraged to continue their research with this breakthrough to help fight against HIV and AIDS.
Doctors had initially attempted this technique by using the precedent of Timothy Brown, diagnosed with HIV and then later developed leukemia before receiving any experimental treatment within Berlin. Brown was then given bone marrow from a donor who carried this resistance mutation from HIV and was then found to have rid his HIV virus entirely after the cancer treatment.
Rafael Duarte, director of the Haematopoietic Transplant Programme at the Catalan Oncology Institute in Barcelona, stated this:
“We suggested a transplant of blood from an umbilical cord but from someone who had the mutation because we knew from ‘the Berlin patient’ that as well as [ending] the cancer, we could also eradicate HIV,”
As preparations were made before this transplant, Brown had been given chemotherapy as to destroy his blood cells so that they could be replaced with new ones. All the while incorporating the mutation which means that the HIV virus can no longer attach itself to the new cells. To which stem cells were used from another donor to speed up the regeneration process.
After eleven days of the transplant, Brown had experienced his recovery only to find out three months later that he was entirely clear of the HIV virus. Regardless of his tragic death, this research is now being backed up by Spain’s National Transplant Organization.
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