HIV treatment reduces its presence in blood

Good news has moved the world: Five HIV patients had an undetectable reservoir of the virus in their blood.This has been the result of a new treatment applied by Spanish scientists. They performed stem cell transplants from bone marrow.

This is perhaps the most important advance in a long time. And it is a real joy for the approximately 36.9 million people living with HIV. This news was released through the Annals of Internal Medicine, a journal of the American College of Physicians.

A relief for HIV

A study co-led by IrsiCaixa and Gregorio Marañón Hospital unravels new stem cell transplant factors that could lead to HIV eradication in the body. Published in 'Annals of Internal Medicine' @AnnalsofIM https://t.co/NIT77rMgzI pic.twitter.com/gPEJzW2UEf

— InstitutRecercaSida (@IrsiCaixa) October 16, 2018

According to the research, scientists explain that, Viral antibodies even disappeared completely in one of the cases, this after the transplant was applied, which indicates that HIV could have been eliminated from his body.

However, there is still a little bit missing. Since the latent viral reservoir of HIV It is made up of infected cells that cannot be detected or cured by medicines or the body's own immune system.

María Salgado, co-author of the study, explained to the Efe news agency that this reservoir is the reason why antiretroviral drugs fail to cure HIV infection. If not, which only reduce the viral load and prevent it from developing and moving into the AIDS stage.

This new study shows that there are certain factors associated with stem cell transplantation that could help eliminate this reservoir from the body. An important point of the study is that, after the transplant, All patients continued taking antiretroviral treatment.

"This could be proof that HIV is no longer in the patient's blood, but this can only be confirmed by stopping treatment and checking whether the virus reappears," Salgado emphasized.

Errata

For a moment the world gave a cry of joy. Since when the investigation became known. A recognized source of information titled “They manage to eliminate HIV in six patients with stem cell transplants”Many media outlets reproduced it, like the snowball effect, causing admiration among the population.

“The good results we have obtained This does not mean that they have been cured, but rather that for the moment we cannot detect the viral reservoir.” He clarified to the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia Javier Martínez-Picado, researcher at the IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute in Barcelona.

The next step to follow is a clinical trial, where they will discontinue antiretroviral medication in some of these patients. And at the same time, we will provide them with new immunotherapies to verify whether the virus has indeed been completely eradicated from their bodies.

This may be it The best news that 2018 can bring us with regard to world of medicineWe are now just one step away from eliminating this disease from the list of incurable diseases.

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