In Germany, a chronic AIDS patient is, according to the New England Medicine Journal, healed from the virus. Timothy Ray Brown, suffering from leukemia, would have received a transplantation of stem cells while he was under a heavy chemotherapy. These cells would come from a donor with a rare genetic mutation allowing immunity to the infection of AIDS. Transplant has apparently eliminated both diseases.
This discovery gives a lot of hope for the future. The idea would be to reproduce the same scenario for other patients. But some scientists describe the process as being difficult and expensive. In order for other patients to benefit from the treatment of Brown, they must undergo the same kind of chemotherapy, which can only be possible in certain cases of cancer, but also find a donor carrying this genetic mutation which remember is very rare: 1% of the Caucasian population and 0% of the black population, and which is compatible with the patient.
The transplantation took place in 2007 and until today, no trace of recurrence of any of the two diseases appeared in Brown, despite the cessation of its anti-HIV treatment. This news will undoubtedly delight the 33.4 million people with the AIDS virus.
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