KAMPALA: An American research team has reported that it has possibly cured HIV in a woman for the first time.
This might bring smiles of relief and hope on the faces of millions of people in the third world especially Africa where the pandemic has left devastating damage in its wake ever since it was discovered on the continent over three decades ago.
Journalist Benjamin Ryan of nbcnews.com reports that building on past successes, as well as failures, in the HIV-cure research field, these scientists used a cutting-edge stem cell transplant method that they expect will expand the pool of people who could receive similar treatment to several dozen annually.
Their patient stepped into a rarified club that includes three men whom scientists have cured, or very likely cured, of HIV. Researchers also know of two women whose own immune systems have, quite extraordinarily, apparently vanquished the virus.
Carl Dieffenbach, director of the Division of AIDS at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, one of multiple divisions of the National Institutes of Health that funds the research network behind the new case study, told NBC News that the accumulation of repeated apparent triumphs in curing HIV “continues to provide hope.”
“It’s important that there continues to be success along this line,” he told the journalist.
In the first case of what was ultimately deemed a successful HIV cure, investigators treated the American Timothy Ray Brown for acute myeloid leukemia, or AML. He received a stem cell transplant from a donor who had a rare genetic abnormality that grants the immune cells that HIV targets natural resistance to the virus. The strategy in Brown’s case, which was first made public in 2008, has since apparently cured HIV in two other people. But it has also failed in a string of others.
According to Wolrd Health Organisation, since the beginning of the epidemic, 79.3 million people have been infected with the HIV virus and 36.3 million people have died of HIV. Globally, 37.7 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2020.
In Uganda, the prevalence of HIV among adults aged 15 to 64 in Uganda is 6.2%: 7.6% among females and 4.7% among males. This corresponds to approximately 1.2 million people aged 15 to 64 living with HIV in Uganda. HIV prevalence is higher among women living in urban areas (9.8%) than those in rural areas (6.7%), according to Ministry of Health figures. Between 400,000-450,000 Ugandans have died from HIV/AIDS. HIV/AIDS is associated with the death of about 50% of adults in some areas of Uganda.
For the rest of the story, visit: https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-health-and-wellness/scientists-possibly-cured-hiv-woman-first-time-rcna16196
