Woman’s immune system cured itself of HIV, researchers claim

A 30-year-old woman who was diagnosed with HIV eight years ago has no signs of an active infection despite never being regularly treated for the illness, researchers have found, according to multiple media outlets.

It is only the second documented case where HIV has been cured by a person’s own immune system.

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The woman, who is from Argentina, according to NBC News, had a sterilizing cure without a stem cell transplant or any other treatment, CNN reported.

The woman was diagnosed with HIV in March 2014. She didn’t start antiretroviral treatment until 2019 when she became pregnant. She started the cocktail of tenofovir, emtricitabine and raltegravir for six months during her second and third trimesters. Her baby was born HIV-negative and she stopped the medication.

Researchers looked at her blood and tissue samples and found no intact virus capable of replicating. They only found seven defective proviruses that are part of the genetic material of a host cell.

They examined 1.2 billion blood cells and 500 million placenta-tissue cells, USA Today reported.

Researchers are not sure how it happened but believe that her cytotoxic T cells — which, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, are part of the immune system that destroy cells infected with viruses or tumors — helped.

The peer-reviewed findings are published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, USA Today reported. The scientists hope that it could give hope to the 38 million people around the world who have HIV, USA Today reported.

The only other such case was that of Loreen Willenberg, 67, according to CNN.

“A sterilizing cure for HIV has previously only been observed in two patients who received a highly toxic bone marrow transplant. Our study shows that such a cure can also be reached during natural infection — in the absence of bone marrow transplants (or any type of treatment at all),” Dr. Xu Yu, the author of the study, told CNN via email.

Yu is part of the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General Hospital, MIT and Harvard.

“Examples of such a cure that develops naturally suggest that current efforts to find a cure for HIV infection are not elusive, and that the prospects of getting to an ‘AIDS-free generation’ may ultimately be successful,” Yu told CNN.

The woman, whose name has not been released, told NBC News via email: “I enjoy being healthy. I have a healthy family. I don’t have to medicate, and I live as though nothing has happened. This already is a privilege.”

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