• Tweeter

  • republish

Spanish researchers have discovered a genetic mutation resistant to the AIDS virus. ALFREDO ESTRELLA / AFP

Could a cure for the AIDS virus be possible? The great progress of Spanish researchers does not remove all the difficulties to set up a treatment to cure HIV-positive patients.

It's thanks to a Spanish family with muscular dystrophy that everything starts. This genetic disease is caused by the mutation of a particular gene. The family doctors make the link, this gene is also of interest to scientists doing research against AIDS . It plays a role in the transport of the virus inside the cells of sick people.

The scientists then try to infect a sample of the blood of this Spanish family with the virus. The result is promising, HIV can not get into it.

The challenge of large-scale grafting

This is not the first time that a cure for AIDS has been discovered. In 2012 already, a very rare mutation of a gene had made it possible to cure the famous " patient of Berlin ". The HIV-positive man had received a stem cell transplant that confers natural immunity against the virus.

Despite these discoveries, today it is impossible to establish a real cure. Achieving the transplantation of an extremely rare gene on a large scale is not an option. And the road is still long to establish a drug that should cure the 37 million HIV-positive people.