GOOD NEWS: HIV/AIDS cure finally FOUND, Doctors confirm

[GachiMuchi]

GOOD NEWS: HIV/AIDS cure finally FOUND, Doctors confirm

 July 28, 2016

 

Doctors in Barcelona, Spain believe they have found the cure to HIV – the AIDS-causing virus that affects the lives of more than 34 million people worldwide, according to WHO.

By using blood transplants from the umbilical cords of individuals with a genetic resistance to HIV, Spanish medical professionals believe they can treat the virus, having proven the procedure successful with one patient.

A 37-year-old man from Barcelona, who had been infected with the HIV virus in 2009, was cured of the condition after receiving a transplant of blood.

While unfortunately the man later died from cancer just three years later, having developed lymphoma, the Spanish medical team is still hugely encouraged by what it considers to be a breakthrough in the fight against HIV and related conditions, according to the Spanish news source El Mundo.

Doctors in Barcelona initially attempted the technique using the precedent of Timothy Brown, an HIV patient who developed leukemia before receiving experimental treatment in Berlin, the Spanish news site The Local reported.

Brown was given bone marrow from a donor who carried the resistance mutation from HIV. After the cancer treatment, the HIV virus had also disappeared.

According to The Local, the CCR5 Delta 35 mutation affects a protein in white blood cells and provides an estimated one percent of the human population with high resistance to infection from HIV.

Spanish doctors attempted to treat the lymphoma of the so-called “Barcelona patient” with chemotherapy and an auto-transplant of the cells, but were unable to find him a suitable bone marrow.

“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,” Rafael Duarte, the director of the Haematopoietic Transplant Programme at the Catalan Oncology Institute in Barcelona, told The Local.

Prior to the transplant, a patient’s blood cells are destroyed with chemotherapy before they are replaced with new cells, incorporating the mutation which means the HIV virus can no longer attach itself to them. For the Barcelona patient, stem cells from another donor were used in order to accelerate the regeneration process.

Eleven days after the transplant, the patient in Barcelona experienced recovery. Three months later, it was found that he was clear of the HIV virus.

Despite the unfortunate death of the patient from cancer, the procedure has led to the development of an ambitious project that is backed by Spain’s National Transplant Organization.

March 2016 will mark the world’s first clinical trials of umbilical cord transplants for HIV patients with blood cancers.

Javier Martinez, a virologist from the research foundation Irsicaixa, stressed that the process is primarily designed to assist HIV patients suffering from cancer, but “this therapy does allow us to speculate about a cure for HIV,” he added.

Edited August 10, 2016 by GachiMuchi

[cutejack]

So no more condoms.

[Guest yeyyyy]

Lets pop the champagne and organise a NDP. 

 

Not Dead from being positive.

[Guest Pessimist]

Old news in april. Men died from cancer afterwards. Not sure if it's a complication or safe? More tests needed.

[killerwhale]

it's just 1 person

 

If more people received the treatment and survived for a few more years without any complications due to the treatment, then we can be sure that the treatment works

[Guest guest]

at this stage it is unknown if the treatment is effective. At best, we could only say it has potential. Just one successful case is not convincing. We should wait and see what are the developments. Nevertheless, this is something promising. 

[upshot]

hehe Don't throw away your condoms yet people.... drug testing would usually take as long as 10 years before it gets approve for sale

[Guest guesty]

Chinese scientists claim possible breakthrough in HIV, hepatitis cure

Photo: The Straits Times

FacebookTwitterShareWhatsApp

 

There's now hope at the end of the tunnel for patients with chronic viral infections, such as HIV and hepatitis B. According to an article published online by Nature magazine, Chinese scientists have identified a unique subset of virus-specific CD8+ T cells playing a pivotal role in the control of viral replication during chronic infection.

Ye Lilin, a professor from the Third Military Medical University in Chongqing and a co-author of the article, said that the CD8+ T cells kill infected cells and secrete antiviral cytokines to effectively clear the virus in the acute infection.

During the chronic viral infection, the CD8+ T cells become exhausted, exhibiting poor effecter function and lose memory ability, Ye said, who is working under a national programme launched in 2013. "The number of CD8+ T cells does not drop, but it seems like police stop fighting with criminals."

However, though the exhausted cells seem to lose the function of getting rid of the virus, scientists found that they still contain viral replication in chronic infections to keep the amount of virus at a low level.

PHOTO GALLERY

HIV and immunity

Photo sources:  The New Paper, Shutterstock.com

 

 

 

 

 

See all+6

Scientists discovered that a subset of exhausted CD8+ T cells expressing the chemokine receptor CXCR5 plays a critical role in the control of viral replication in mice that were chronically infected with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus.

Scientists called the subset as CXCR5+ CD8+ T cells that were preferentially localized in B-cell follicles, expressed lower levels of inhibitory receptors and exhibited more potent cytotoxicity.

Scientists identified the Id2/E2A axis as an important regulator for the generation of the CXCR5+ subset.

Currently, chemical drugs can only restrain the viral replication to some extent, but not clear the virus in treating patients of HIV, hepatitis B and cancers.

Ye said the new findings would allow researchers to find certain measures to improve and stabilize the function of CXCR5+ CD8+ T cells to clear the virus, offering possibility of curing these diseases.

[Guest Another wistful hope]

So many possible cures we have been hearing for years, yet none turned out to be successful. 成功了，再说吧。

[Guest H I Vee]

2 hours ago, Guest Another wistful hope said:

So many possible cures we have been hearing for years, yet none turned out to be successful. 成功了，再说吧。

 

Yeah, many probably in prelim stages, not to mention some of these early theories, findings and results may be fluffed, nudged or faked.

[Guest POZD]

For reliable information on HIV treatment and cure, please refer to www.aidsmap.com. They have lots of it.

[wantonmee]

if true, hopefully its affordable...

PEP and PrEP meds cost a bomb now..

[Guest kangshim]

I'd rather scientist find a pill to cure people of their ignorance, religious intolerance and indiscriminate discrimination that makes life intolerable for all types of minorities.

 

WORLD PEACE.........finally scientist discovered the fountain source of world peace and global love and acceptance. Its a pill buried deep within the brain of all sentient beings.

[Guest Misled]

 

 

Very misleading title.