Marrow transplant may have rid patient of HIV

The number of people living with HIV in the world is estimated at 37 million, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. In China, the number of people living with HIV was estimated at 1.25 million as of the end of last year, and the number of new cases is around 80,000 a year, according to the National Health Commission.

Although it is generally thought that HIV/AIDS cannot be cured, many patients with the virus can live a mostly normal life with anti-viral treatment that keeps the virus at a low level.

Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said the latest study done in Britain shows the possibility of curing HIV/AIDS through stem-cell transplants and is a ray of hope to those living with HIV.

"However, it is still too early to say the method can by copied and promoted extensively to treat people with HIV," Wu said.

A big hurdle in such research is the difficulty of finding donors with the CCR5 delta 32 genetic mutation, given that the percentage of people with the mutation is very low among the total population, he said.

"Besides, there are different subtypes of HIV, which require different coreceptors to produce an infection," he said. "Other HIV coreceptors exist besides CCR5, so such a method will not be effective in treating HIV if the virus infects through other coreceptors," he said. Coreceptors create a docking area on cells for HIV infection.

Wu Hao, a professor of infectious diseases at Beijing Youan Hospital, said the research is important and may have value in the search for a cure for HIV patients. Some Chinese researchers are also conducting similar research, he said.