Two men with HIV have been off AIDS drugs for several months after
receiving stem-cell transplants for cancer that appear to have cleared
the virus from their bodies, researchers reported on Wednesday.
Both patients, who were treated in Boston and had been on long-term
drug therapy to control their HIV, received stem-cell transplants after
developing lymphoma, a type of blood cancer.
Since the transplants, doctors have been unable to find any evidence
of HIV infection, Timothy Henrich of Harvard Medical School and Brigham
and Women's Hospital in Boston told an International AIDS Society
conference in Kuala Lumpur.
While it is too early to say for sure that the virus has disappeared
from their bodies altogether, one patient has now been off
antiretroviral drug treatment for 15 weeks and the other for seven
weeks.
Last July Henrich first reported that the two men had undetectable
levels of HIV in their blood after their stem-cell treatment, but at
that time they were still taking medicines to suppress HIV.
Using stem-cell therapy is not seen as a viable option for
widespread use, since it is extremely expensive, but the latest cases
could open new avenues for fighting the disease, which infects about 34
million people worldwide.
The latest cases resemble that of Timothy Ray Brown, known as "the
Berlin patient", who became the first person to be cured of HIV after
receiving a bone marrow transplant for leukaemia in 2007. There are,
however, important differences.
While Brown's doctor used stem cells from a donor with a rare
genetic mutation, known as CCR5 delta 32, which renders people virtually
resistant to HIV, the two Boston patients received cells without this
mutation.
"Dr. Henrich is charting new territory in HIV eradication research,"
Kevin Robert Frost, chief executive officer of the Foundation for AIDS
Research, which funded the study, said in a statement.
Scientific advances since HIV was first discovered more than 30
years ago mean the virus is no longer a death sentence and the latest
antiretroviral AIDS drugs can control the virus for decades.
But many people still do not get therapy early enough, prompting the
World Health Organisation to call for faster roll-out of medicines
after patients test positive.
Indian generics companies are leading suppliers of HIV drugs to
Africa and to many other poor countries. Major Western HIV drugmakers
include Gilead Sciences, Johnson & Johnson and ViiV Healthcare,
which is majority-owned by GlaxoSmithKline.
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