After 25 years of fighting against illness, a woman was declared in remission from HIV in the Pac regiona.
According to a press release from the university hospitals of Marseille, a patient monitored within the CISIH (Information and Care Center for Human Immunodeficiency and viral hepatitis) could represent the first case in France of HIV remission. This “healing” occurs after an allogeneic bone marrow transplant.
HIV positive since 1999, the patient is now 60 years old. “Despite effective antiretroviral treatments from 2010, she developed acute myeloid leukemia in 2020. An allogeneic bone marrow transplant carried out at the Paoli-Calmettes Institute in July 2020 made it possible to treat his leukemia. The donor had a rare genetic mutation (Delta 32) on the CCR5 gene, preventing HIV from entering cells“, details the press release from the university hospitals of Marseille.
After this transplant, the patient continued antiretroviral treatment for three years before stopping in October 2023.
-A first in France, eighth case in the world
“Further virological examinations were carried out during his surveillance, in particular ultrasensitive viral load tests, viral culture tests as well as a search for pro-viral DNA corresponding to the possible reservoir of virus still present in his organism. All these tests were negative. continue the hospitals of Marseille.
Curing HIV would be a first in France. Worldwide, only 7 cases of functional cure of HIV after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation, aimed at treating lymphoma or leukemia, have been reported worldwide.
For six of them, the donor carried the Delta 32 mutation on the CCR5 receptor.
