NYTimes.com – New rare cure for AIDS was announced in Berlin after they have cured a patient using transplanted blood stem cells from a healthy person who is naturally has resistance to the virus.
However, medical experts said that it will be used in limited immediate period, while top researchers of America have a different opinion about it; they said that it won’t help curing millions in Africa and other reported areas.
“It’s very nice, and it’s not even surprising,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “But it’s just off the table of practicality.”
“Frankly, I’d rather take the medicine,” said Dr. Robert C. Gallo, director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, referring to antiretroviral drugs.
The critical point in the whole process was that the patient who is 42 years old American lives in Berlin has a leukaemia too, so it is risky to apply the stem cells cure, because it demands using patient’s immune system including bone marrow with radiation and drugs, and in this process 10% to 30% die.
Beside that what is the chance finding a patient who fits the tissues demands and also has the genetic mutation of HIV resistant gene? , they announced the cure in Wednesday by Dr. Gero Hütter and Dr. Eckhard Thiel, blood-cancer specialists at Charité Hospital in Berlin.
