It was reported in July, across
different media outlets, that two male patients had stopped anti-retroviral therapy and were HIV-free after bone-marrow transplants that occurred in 2008 in one man and 2010 in the second. The men were given high-risk bone-marrow transplants to treat blood cancer and had no detectable levels of HIV in their blood eight months post-transplant. They each stopped taking anti-retroviral drugs earlier this year and did not test positive for HIV for months.
However, now the scientists involved in the study have announced that HIV is back in both patients. Commenting on tests which showed the detection of the virus, Deborah Persaud of the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center in Baltimore, Maryland, told
Nature News: "It’s disappointing and very sobering."
According to the
New York Times, both men are now back on anti-retroviral drugs.
As to whether HIV is linked to AIDS, that is a different matter as this article on
Digital Journal discusses.
