Current Events > Doctors stunned when girl's immune system fights off HIV in possible world first

(+) Yeah! (+)

The woman in Argentina may have become the first person whose immune system, itself, cured her of the virus. And, though it has been heralded as a miracle, it presents hope to scientistsand patientsthat one day we may be able to put the HIV scourge behind us.
The 30-year-old woman dubbed the Esperanza Patient (in the tradition of naming HIV-cured patients after their city of residence), may prove a little more special.

This is really the miracle of the human immune system that did it, Dr. Xu Yu, a viral immunologist at the Ragon Institute in Boston, told NBC. Yu led the exhaustive, no-stone-unturned search for any trace of HIV in the Esperanza Patient, and published the study this month in Annals of Internal Medicine.

The few details released to the public regarding the unique case includes that she was diagnosed in 2013, and has been showing non-existent viral presence for 8 years. Then, in 2020 she gave birth to an HIV-negative child. If researchers can figure out how her immune system is capable to neutralizing the virus so effectively, it would lead to more effective and basic treatments, and perhaps even a cure.

HIV has been hypothesized as cured in 2 other people, the London, and Berlin Patients, who were both cured with a stem cell transplant treatment.

The transplanted donor cells had a gene defect called CCR5delta32mutant which results in the absence of one of the critical entry gatekeepers that HIV generally needs to infect cells.

In the case of the Esperanza Patient, she is defined as an elite controller, with rare odds and an immune system that can suppress the dreaded virus naturally. HIV is difficult to treat and detect, as it is capable of infecting and living dormant in the immune cells, which live the longest, giving it excellent resilience.

These elite controllers have an ability to preferentially target these long-lived cells, according to another paper published by Yu in 2020 with Esperanza as a participant. The viral reservoir dries up, removing HIVs most effective survival strategy.

I enjoy being healthy, the Esperanza patient, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told NBC News in a translated email. I have a healthy family. I dont have to medicate, and I live as though nothing has happened. This already is a privilege.

38 million people live with HIV, which over the last two decades has become somewhat treatable with drugs, but the authors state that the more cases like Esperanza that medical science can uncover and study, the more we can begin to understand what it meansand looks liketo cure the disease.

Maybe another reason people are feeling hopeful. The word esperanza, in Spanish, literally means hope.

Full Article: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/argentinian-esperanza-patient-cured-of-hiv-by-her-own-immune-system/



The R rated sequel to Osmosis Jones has had it's plot leaked it seems.

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The doctors were actually pretty stunned I was alive when I ended up at the hospital with very advanced symptoms.

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Thank God it's not airborne

Shablagoo posted...

The doctors were actually pretty stunned I was alive when I ended up at the hospital with very advanced symptoms.

wat

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UnfairRepresent posted...

wat

I ended up in the ER with complications due to having full-blown AIDS a few years back. It took days before they could figure out what it was because no one had seen such an advanced case in so long. It took a doctor who had been working during the height of the epidemic coming in to recognize it. They were surprised it hadnt killed me already.

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ShroomKingJr posted...

Oh, so that's okay, but it is racist to refer to covid-19 as the Wuhan virus. Gotcha.

Holy fuck bud. Thats the dumbest thing I'll read all day

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Shablagoo posted...

I ended up in the ER with complications due to having full-blown AIDS a few years back. It took days before they could figure out what it was because no one had seen such an advanced case in so long. It took a doctor who had been working during the height of the epidemic coming in to recognize it. They were surprised it hadnt killed me already.

How did you survive?

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SwordMaster13X posted...

How did you survive?

AIDS can be treated pretty well nowadays even if it cannot be cured, it's more of a chronic disease than a fatal one in most of the western world now.

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I dont know.... doubt.

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Shablagoo posted...

I ended up in the ER with complications due to having full-blown AIDS a few years back. It took days before they could figure out what it was because no one had seen such an advanced case in so long. It took a doctor who had been working during the height of the epidemic coming in to recognize it. They were surprised it hadnt killed me already.

Wait. What.

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SwordMaster13X posted...

How did you survive?

BeyondWalls posted...

Wait. What.

The doctors gave me antibiotics to start clearing up the fungal infections (they were all over my body but most debilitatingly in my lungs and esophagus it was rough breathing and Id lost about 50 lbs. because it was too painful to swallow food).

Now I take an ARV (Biktarvy) every day to keep the HIV/AIDS at bay. I got diagnosed in the Fall of 2018 and have been undetectable (meaning I cant transmit the virus) since maybe the Summer of 2019.

The doctors estimated Id had HIV for 8-10 years before my diagnosis, but the outward physical infections didnt really start rearing their head until about a year before I ended up in the ER and I think I ignored them/put them off so long because I was taking care of my dad on his deathbed during that time. He died less than a week before I finally couldnt take it and had to go to the ER.

P.S. ty for asking

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Shablagoo posted...

I ended up in the ER with complications due to having full-blown AIDS a few years back. It took days before they could figure out what it was because no one had seen such an advanced case in so long. It took a doctor who had been working during the height of the epidemic coming in to recognize it. They were surprised it hadnt killed me already.

Wow, I'm glad you're ok.

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Shablagoo posted...

Now I take an ARV (Biktarvy) every day to keep the HIV/AIDS at bay.

that sucks dude, glad you're okay

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Shes beginning to believe!