By: Emma Wei

A 66-year-old immunodeficiency virus infection (HIV) patient and others received a transplant of blood stem cells containing a rare mutation and are now in long-term remission. Announced on Wednesday, the medical team believes that in the future, doctors can use gene editing to recreate the mutation and cure HIV for good.

There are around 38 million HIV patients worldwide and 1.2 million in the United States. The virus is caused by acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS).

The 66-year-old patient had HIV for more than half his life. He and the other patients were treated by doctors from the City of Hope, a cancer and research center in Duarte, California. The HIV curing mutation used is rare; thus, only a handful of other patients received treatment.

Although the new mutation treatment is not available to everyone, many additional developments have been discovered. In 1987, it started with the approval of the drug AZT, advancing a decade later by using protease inhibitors to reduce the virus in the body. In 2012, PrEP was approved, helping healthy people from becoming infected.

According to a 2017 study in the journal AIDS, these new developments allow a patient with a new diagnosis at 20 years old to live till 74 with antiretroviral therapy.

“When I was diagnosed with HIV in 1988, like many others, I thought it was a death sentence,” said a City of Hope patient in a statement shared by the hospital. “I never thought I would live to see the day that I no longer have HIV.”

The same patient is now in long-term remission as well. He received a transplant in early 2019 and combined it with antiretroviral therapy.

This new discovery has given hope to many HIV patients in the world. Their incurable disease may become curable. “The message to people living with HIV is that this is a signal of hope,” said Scully of Johns Hopkins.