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 2015 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.
