According to researchers, a Californian woman who was diagnosed with HIV in 1992 may be the first person ever to defeat HIV without any treatment or risky bone marrow transplant. This phenomenon was also seen in 63 individuals who were able to combat the disease without any medication. This was done by isolating the HIV virus in their bodies in viral reservoirs and preventing its replication.
Researchers say that such individuals have acquired a functional cure. This term has come to light due to the latest genetic engineering technologies. The 66-year-old Californian woman named Loreen Willenberg has been known in the medical community to have successfully suppressed the HIV virus for decades without any medication or transplant. Till date, only two patients in the world have been cured of HIV.
One of these patients goes by the name “Berlin patient” who was cured of AIDS in 2008. Another patient known by the name of “London Patient” was cured in 2019. Both of these patients had undergone an extremely painful bone marrow transplant procedure and antiretroviral therapy. Loreen is the first woman to be cured of HIV without any medication and third patient in the world to beat the infection. The reason why HIV infection is so difficult to combat is that the HIV virus directly attacks your immune system which is responsible for producing antibodies against the pathogens. In some individuals, their immune system is able to overcome the attack and return to its normal function after a while.
In fact, some individuals are even able to block and lock away the genome infected by HIV. Such individuals have acquired a functional cure which is seen in only 0.5% of the patients. Researchers have started calling these individuals as ‘elite controllers’. For the last three to four decades, such controllers have been studied extensively. In fact, Loreen herself had been enrolled in one such study for nearly 15 years. Scientists claim that other than the tests done many years ago to confirm the HIV diagnosis in Loreen, the virus has not been detected in any of her tissues.
This confirms that her body has locked away the HIV infected genome. Furthermore, scientists claim the individuals with functional cure do not carry antibodies against the virus but their T-cells can attack the infected cells. This research has been published in the journal named Nature and the locking away mechanism can be used to develop a variety of antiviral therapies.