On the heels of World AIDS Day comes a stunning medical breakthrough: Doctors believe an HIV-positive man who underwent a stem cell transplant has been cured as a result of the procedure.
Timothy Ray Brown, also known as the "Berlin Patient," received the transplant in 2007 as part of a lengthy treatment course for leukemia. His doctors recently published a report in the journal Blood affirming that the results of extensive testing "strongly suggest that cure of HIV infection has been achieved."
Brown's case paves a path for constructing a permanent cure for HIV through genetically-engineered stem cells.
Last week, Time named another AIDS-related discovery to its list of the Top 10 Medical Breakthroughs of 2010. Recent studies show that healthy individuals who take antiretrovirals, medicine commonly prescribed for treating HIV, can reduce their risk of contracting the disease by up to 73 percent.
While these developments by no means prove a cure for the virus has been found, they can certainly provide hope for the more than 33 million people living with HIV worldwide. Alongside such findings, global efforts to combat the epidemic have accelerated as of late, with new initiatives emerging in the Philippines and South Africa this week.
Carly Schwartz
The Huffington Post
Bob Out
6 comments:
brilliant news.
That's great news!
Wouldn't that be a miracle? I lost one childhood friend to that horrible illness.
I hope this is the case
I hope this is true. It's too bad we didn't come up with this first.
Well, it will never fly here in the U.S. because of all the Bible-thumpers who won't let stem cell research pass because it "murders" babies.
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