An artist's depiction of an HIV/AIDS virus.
A woman in Argentina received a life-changing diagnosis in 2013 when she was diagnosed with HIV. The virus has been gone for eight years.
The researchers wrote in the journal Annals of Internal that they couldn't find any evidence of HIV in her body despite analyzing massive numbers of cells from blood and tissues. They said that science can't prove that there is no trace of the human immunodeficiency virus.
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This is the second known case of a person's immune system eliminating HIV without a bone marrow transplant or drug intervention. The first such case was that of a California woman named Loreen Willenberg, who in 2020 found out that the virus was absent from her body for the first time in 27 years, The New York Times reported. The London Patient and the Berlin Patient have both been cured of HIV, but only after having their immune cells completely replaced via stem cell therapy, according to research published in 2020.
The Argentine woman was dubbed the "Esperanza Patient" by her doctors in order to protect her anonymity in a country where people are still stigmatized for HIV-positive status. She is a member of a group of HIV patients called "elite controllers". The people who have the virus in their systems are able to maintain a low viral load, even without treatment.
According to research published in the Journal of Virus Eradication, elite controllers represent 1% of the global HIV-positive population. Scientists don't know how their immune systems eliminate the virus.
Rowena Johnston, director of research at The Foundation for AIDS Research, told NBC News that she was interested in learning more about the phenomenon of elite control.
Willenberg and the Esperanza Patient are special cases. Doctors say that their existence offers hope in the search for a cure for HIV/AIDS.
"This makes us hopeful that a natural cure of HIV is actually possible," said Xu You, a viral immunologist at the Ragon Institute in Boston and one of the lead investigators of the study. That's the beauty of the name? "Esperanza" is the name of the patient's hometown and it means "hope" in Spanish.
The patient is expecting her second child and is enjoying her life. She wants to make sure that people with HIV have a second chance. "Just thinking that my condition might help achieve a cure for this virus makes me feel a great responsibility and commitment to make this a reality," she said in an email.
Live Science published the original article.
