Getting HIV these days is no longer the death sentence that many had thought to be the case back in the day. These days, with antiretroviral therapy, many people with HIV can lead relatively normal lives, but of course, being able to cure the virus is still something that many researchers are trying to find.However, it seems that researchers could be getting close because according to researchers from Massachusetts, they have discovered a second patient who seems to have completely defeated the HIV infection on her own without the need for antiviral treatments or a bone marrow transplant.
These types of patients are known as “elite controllers” and have been studied for a while now. They’re of particular interest because they seem to have immune systems that can keep the virus in check naturally without having to use drugs. The use of drugs is typically taken to prevent the virus from replicating itself inside certain immune cells, but these “elite controllers” appear to be capable of doing it naturally.
This patient had lived with HIV for seven years but is now declared as completely cured by the researchers, after they had tested over 2 billion blood and tissue cells collected from her. Speaking to Gizmodo over the phone, Xu Yu, a Ragon Institute researcher said, “The examples of these two cases really suggest that our current efforts to find a cure for HIV infection are not elusive. If we learn how natural immunity to the virus works, we’re going to be able to do this.”
Filed in . Read more about Health, Science and Social Hit. Source: gizmodo