HIV patient's remission spurs hope for curing AIDS-causing infection

A stem-cell treatment put a London cancer patient’s HIV into remission, marking the second such reported case and reinvigorating efforts to cure the AIDS-causing infection that afflicts some 37 million people globally.

The patient has been in remission for 19 months, the International AIDS Society said in a statement. That’s too soon to label the treatment —which used hematopoietic stem cells from a donor with an HIV-resistance gene — as a cure, researchers said on Tuesday in a study in the journal Nature. 

Hematopoietic stem cells give rise to other blood cells.

An embargo on the paper was lifted due to early reporting