The third person in the world ever got cured from HIV recently. This opens a new horizon for both science and the patients no matter the race. Now that the cure is more available than stem cell transplant cure approach, it may cure a huge proportion of HIV patients. In fact, the third is a woman that is now HIV free due to transplantation process including umbilical cord blood. Moreover, both HIV and cancer patients can benefit from this process since a partial donor recipient match is enough for a successful transplantation. Indeed, this approach is very rewarding than any approach previously found for there’s no obligation to find a donor of the same ethnicity and race. As a matter of fact, more than half of HIV world cases are women as the infection progression is unlike that of men , so curing a HIV woman is a big deal.

The difference between umbilical cord blood and stem cells treatment:

The first two HIV cured cases by bone marrow transplants are Timothy Brown and Adam Castillejo. Actually, the transplants includes a rare mutated gene (only found in 20000 people) that inhibits HIV infection. Unlike the woman, Brown and Castillejo experienced graft versus host disease following the transplant; however, eventually after the process they were both HIV free. 

According to Dr. JingMei Hsu of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, the patient was discharged 17 days after her surgery. In addition, the cure is without any symptoms of graft versus host disease. The Times quotes Dr. Sharon Lewin, president-elect of the International AIDS Society, who said this case debunks the hypothesis that triggering graft versus host disease could cure HIV. In addition to being HIV-positive, the woman suffered from acute myeloid leukemia. Acute myeloid leukemia affects the cells that generate blood in the bone marrow. Remarkably, the umbilical cord blood was used not only for her cancer treatment, but to treat her HIV.