AIDS: an Argentinian patient cured "naturally" without treatment

Human T cell (in blue) attacked by HIV (in yellow), viewed under an electron microscope by the US National Institute of Health.

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An Argentina, diagnosed with HIV in 2013, has just been declared cured without any treatment, reported a scientific study published Tuesday, November 16

This is the second case of documented “natural” healing.

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The 30-year-old, called “patient Esperanza”, had been followed since 2017 by an international team of researchers.

After giving birth in 2020, scientists took a closer look at her placenta.

Conclusion: no more trace of the AIDS virus is detected, according to a study published Tuesday, November 16 in the journal

This is the second time that a cure for AIDS without any antiretroviral treatment has taken place in the world.

The very first case was observed, also in 2020, in a sexagenarian from San Francisco in the United States.

"Elite controllers"

This new revelation tends to prove that a small group of people, between 0.5 and 1% of the world's population, are born with natural resistance to HIV,

. Some have genes that prevent infection. Others contract the disease but eradicate the virus on their own. However, most people need antiretroviral therapy throughout their lives, otherwise the virus wakes up and rages again.  

In recent years, other studies have shown that so-called “elite controller” patients can clear the virus without the help of anti-HIV treatment.

Let us also remember the case of Adam Castillejo, known as the 

, was able to stop taking his daily AIDS medications after having received stem cell treatment for a cancer from which he was also affected.

These HIV-infected cells were deleted and replaced during therapy for her cancer.

By complete coincidence, her stem cell donor was one of that small group of people with genes that prevent HIV infection.

Which could correspond to the case of the "patient Esperanza". 

Healing mechanisms to reproduce

These two natural cures give hope to scientists who have been researching for years to find a cure for HIV.

For now, researchers following the Argentinian patient are trying to understand the mechanisms that led to her recovery.

With the objective of reproducing the therapeutic principle by means of a

mentioned by Doctor Xu Yu of the Ragon Institute of the Massachusetts General Hospital.

It would be a question of inducing this kind of immunity in patients, via vaccination for example, with the aim of " 

 ".

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