The patient was being treated for acute myeloid leukaemia (cancer of the blood and bone marrow) when she received a stem cell transplant. The donor also happened to have a natural resistance to the HIV virus.

A small proportion of humans show partial or apparently complete inborn resistance to HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. It is estimated that the proportion of people with some form of resistance to HIV is under 10%.

The woman is the third person to be cured of HIV but the first using umbilical cord stem cells. The other known cases were males, one white and one Latino. They had received adult stem cells which are more frequently used in bone marrow transplants.

Since receiving the cord blood the woman has been free of HIV for 14 months without the need for antiretroviral (ARV) therapy.

Unfortunately, experts say the transplant method used is too risky to be suitable for most people with HIV. All three patients that have been cured needed stem cell transplants to save their lives. Curing their HIV was a positive but unplanned outcome.

Although the treatment cannot be used on everyone, these findings confirm that it is possible to find a cure for HIV. So far, the main hopes of a cure remain focused on vaccines or drugs that can flush the virus out of the body.

According to National HIV Survey (ZIMPHIA 2020), 1.23 million adults in Zimbabwe were living with the HIV virus. This is an indicator that HIV affects a lot of people in Zimbabwe. A few years ago being diagnosed with HIV meant certain death in 1 or 2 years. Now ARVs and lifestyle changes give people a close to normal life expectancy. This new discovery gives people living with the virus hope for themselves and for those with loved ones living with the HIV virus.

The post Have Scientists Finally Found A Cure For HIV? appeared first on Provoker Magazine.

An estimated 38 million people are living with HIV worldwide, about 1.2 million of whom are in the United States, according to the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS and the CDC. There are approximately 1.5 million HIV transmissions globally each year, including about 37,000 new U.S. cases.

An international research team has identified a highly virulent and infectious strain of HIV that has infected more than 100 people.

More on the strain

A new super-mutant HIV strain that makes infected individuals ill twice as fast as current versions of the virus has been detected in the Netherlands. The earliest evidence of this strain (also known as the VB variant) was in an individual diagnosed with HIV in 1992. It would then spread silently in the Netherlands for decades and signs suggest this strain might not have spread much outside the Netherlands.

The strain damages the immune system and weakens a person’s ability to fight everyday infections and disease faster than previous versions of the virus. It means those who catch this strain could develop AIDS more quickly.

Left untreated, this viral strain leads to a much higher level of virus in the blood and a doubled rate of decline in key immune cells compared with the typical HIV disease progression. The highly virulent HIV strain would likely develop AIDS within just two to three years of diagnosis

The research team, led by scientists at the University of Oxford with key contributions from Stichting HIV Monitoring in Amsterdam, has stressed that these findings are not cause for alarm. This particular HIV strain responds well to antiretroviral treatment, which has the added benefit of blocking transmission.

While the strain could still be transmitting to new people, once someone with the strain starts treatment, it is not associated with an increased risk of illness or death. After starting treatment, those with the variant have a similar immune system recovery and survival rate to those infected with other HIV strains. Researchers warned the rapid health decline after catching VB means early detection and treatment is ‘critical’.

According to a national HIV survey (ZIPHIA) in 2020, the rate of annual new HIV infections among adults in Zimbabwe is 0.38 percent (0.54 percent among women and 0.20 percent among men) or approximately 31,000 persons over a year.

The prevalence of HIV among adults was 12.9 percent, which corresponds to approximately 1.23 million adults in Zimbabwe living with HIV in 2020. Generally, the survey found that HIV prevalence was higher among women than men (15.3 percent vs. 10.2 percent).

With such news and information at hand, it is encouraged that people get tested at least once a year to know your status and get early treatment should the need arise.

The post New ‘Highly Virulent’ HIV Strain Discovered In The Netherlands appeared first on Provoker Magazine.

Zimbabwe has 750 00 young women living with HIV, the third highest figure In Southern Africa. South Africa has over 4.3 million young women living with HIV, and Mozambique is second with over 1.1 million.

The report also discovered that women in the rural areas are twice as likely to be infected by HIV.

Western and central Europe North America have the lowest figures with a country like Slovenia with less than a 100 people living with HIV.

You can download the full report here

The post 750 000 Young Zimbabwean Women are HIV Positive: UN Report appeared first on Provoker Magazine.