Two million people die of Aids every year and the virus is estimated to have infected 33 million people worldwide.
Thirty-three million people worldwide are infected with HIV virus that causes AIDS and two million people die of AIDS every year. For the time being, our immune system is not able to fight the HIV virus because it is exactly the immune system that gets attacked by the virus and there is no known cure for AIDS.
Doctors from Germany have reported a case in which a patient had been cured of HIV by a bone marrow transplant from a donor who had a genetic resistance to HIV. Roughly one in 1,000 Europeans and Americans have an inherited genetic mutation, which prevents HIV from attaching itself to cells.
The patient in question is a 42-year-old American living in Berlin who had suffered from leukemia and HIV. He has been infected with HIV for over a decade but also developed leukemia. After the bone marrow transplant 2 years ago, no signs of either disease have been seen.
The clinic reported that since the transplant, tests on his bone marrow, blood and other organ tissues have all been clean.
These results are expected to encourage further interest in gene therapy as a treatment for Aids. So far all efforts to find a cure have been unsuccessful.
However, the leading HIV researcher, Dr Andrew Badley, of the Mayo Clinic in the American state of Minnesota, has warned a lot more tests are needed to prove the man is clear of HIV.
Thirty-three million people worldwide are infected with HIV virus that causes AIDS and two million people die of AIDS every year. For the time being, our immune system is not able to fight the HIV virus because it is exactly the immune system that gets attacked by the virus and there is no known cure for AIDS.
Doctors from Germany have reported a case in which a patient had been cured of HIV by a bone marrow transplant from a donor who had a genetic resistance to HIV. Roughly one in 1,000 Europeans and Americans have an inherited genetic mutation, which prevents HIV from attaching itself to cells.
The patient in question is a 42-year-old American living in Berlin who had suffered from leukemia and HIV. He has been infected with HIV for over a decade but also developed leukemia. After the bone marrow transplant 2 years ago, no signs of either disease have been seen.
The clinic reported that since the transplant, tests on his bone marrow, blood and other organ tissues have all been clean.
These results are expected to encourage further interest in gene therapy as a treatment for Aids. So far all efforts to find a cure have been unsuccessful.
However, the leading HIV researcher, Dr Andrew Badley, of the Mayo Clinic in the American state of Minnesota, has warned a lot more tests are needed to prove the man is clear of HIV.
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That's pretty interesting. I know someone very close to me and and they found out that they had HIV. Now they are getting closer to acually having the cure for it. They have very unbelieveable medicines out there to help keep up there immune system and to stay healthy. My friend has been on it for a year and doing awsome, and the blood test that is done every three months comes up as undetected. It does'nt even show the HIV. It's so cool to see this come about.
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