Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a serious disease whose risk has been increasing globally. HIV infection can occur due to unsafe sex, contaminated injections, and transfusion of blood from an infected person. Infection with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) weakens the body's immunity, due to which there is a risk of serious diseases.
AIDS is still considered an incurable disease. Since the beginning of the pandemic, 85.6 million people have been infected with HIV and approximately 40.4 million have died from AIDS. Globally, 39.0 million people are living with HIV by the end of 2022.
In the last few years, scientists have been making continuous efforts for the treatment of AIDS. Some medical reports suggest that some efforts to treat AIDS have shown good results. Let us know about this.
Three patients have recovered so far
Efforts made to treat HIV seem to be achieving some success so far, although globally it is still seen as an incurable disease. So far, three cases of recovery from HIV have been reported.
According to reports, this year an HIV-infected woman has been successfully treated for this disease. Stem cell transplant technology was used to treat this infection, through which success was achieved in curing the infection. She has become the first woman and third person to be cured of HIV.
Treatment is done through stem cell transplant
Medical reports reveal that the HIV-infected woman was already suffering from leukemia. For its treatment, a donor was found who had natural immunity against HIV. There is new hope for curing HIV infection through transplants.
Steven Deeks, an AIDS expert at the University of California, San Francisco, said in an address that the trial first required chemotherapy to kill cancer immune cells in patients. After this procedure, cord stem cells were transplanted into it. Scientists believe that now the woman will develop a resistant immune system against HIV.
Hope raised for treatment of HIV infection
Through this treatment process, experts have gained hope that in the future it may help cure HIV infection. In a procedure known as a halo-cord transplant, the woman was given cord blood from a partially matched donor. Based on this, expectations regarding the treatment of HIV have increased considerably.
Until now, stem cell transplant or bone marrow transplant has been used to treat some types of cancer.
What do scientists say?
Scientists hope that if this technology is successful then AIDS will no longer be an incurable disease. Professor Yvonne Bryson of the University of California says the use of umbilical cord blood cells offers hope for people living with HIV. We are making efforts to successfully treat this serious disease. Even now lakhs of people die every year due to cancer.
(PC: Freepik)
