Second HIV patient may have been cured – The Wall Street Journal

DUBLIN — HIV and AIDS remain a huge challenge across South Africa. Despite the government's extensive HIV education campaign and ARV programme, new infections continue to occur and many patients are still not accessing the ARVs they need. In 2016, there were nearly 300,000 new infections and over 100,000 AIDS-related deaths. Over seven million South Africans are living with HIV, and only 56% of them were on ARVs. Faced with these numbers, what SA really needs is a cure. So, the news that a second HIV patient appears to have been cured, this time in London (the last cure was in Berlin ten years ago), is exciting. Sadly, the news comes with a lot of caveats. For a start, the cure involved a stem-cell transplant, which isn't exactly something that the South African government can offer to all seven million infected South Africans. Plus, this is only the second time a stem-cell transplant seems to have worked, even though it has been attempted several times. Still, the fact that a cure is possible is encouraging. It seems to hinge off a particular mutation in a particular gene. So, even if the stem-cell transplant cure is not scalable, it does offer researchers an area to focus on in the search for a more workable cure. And that is good news. – Felicity Duncan

Second HIV Patient May Be Cured After Stem-Cell Transplant

By Betsy McKay

A London man infected with HIV may be the second person to beat the virus that causes AIDS, researchers reported Monday, a finding advancing the costly and challenging search for a cure.

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