After the “Berlin patient” in 2009 and the “London” patient in 2019, a third case of HIV recovery after a bone marrow transplant has been revealed. This is the “Dusseldorf patient” who received a stem cell transplant to treat leukemia.
According to the international consortium Icistem, of which the Pasteur Institute is a partner, the researchers did not find any viral particle, nor an activatable reservoir, nor immune responses against the virus in the body of this individual four years after the cessation of his treatment, reports The world.
The three cured patients were all suffering from blood cancer. The donors had a gene called CCR5, a genetic mutation that prevents HIV from entering cells. It was in 2018 that the medical team no longer detected the presence of the virus and planned with the patient from Düsseldorf a supervised discontinuation of antiretroviral treatment against HIV.
However, even if these cases of remission bring a glimmer of hope to researchers, bone marrow transplantation remains a very heavy and risky operation.
