As a result of increasing access to effective prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care, HIV has become a manageable chronic condition ( AFP / MUJAHID SAFODIEN)

A regular cure for HIV does not exist yet, but early trials are underway

This article is more than one year old.
Published on September 6, 2021 at 10:24
3 min read
By Tendai DUBE, AFP South Africa

A Facebook post shared thousands of times claims that a cure for HIV is now available. The claim, though, is misleading; only two people in history have been rid of the disease through HIV-resistant stem cell transplants. However, there is no cure on the market for HIV, although clinical trials remain ongoing.

“Finally the cure for HIV is out,” reads the Facebook post. It was published on June 29, 2021, and has garnered more than 4,000 shares and 2,600 comments.

A screenshot of the misleading Facebook post, taken on August 24, 2021

A keyword search on Facebook found similar posts claiming a “cure” for HIV (here and here), with one sharing a 30-second news snippet of ABC7 anchor Michelle Marsh reporting on the strides being made in the development of a cure.

A screenshot of a misleading Facebook post that shared an ABC7 news clip, taken on September 3, 2021

However, Marsh does not say anything in the clip to give the impression that a cure “is out”, as the posts claim.

“The push to find a cure for HIV takes another step forward with a Rockville company; a DC doctor infused the first patient with American Gene Technology’s (AGT) cell and gene product,” Marsh said in the clip.

The full ABC7 report was published online on May 27, 2021.

The biotechnology company’s CEO, Jeff Galvin, is also featured in the longer news report, in which he explains that the potential therapy is undergoing trials.

“Even if this first attempt doesn’t get a cure, we can go back and reengineer that and we know that the basic process is safe, so we can kind of ‘debug the software’ in those cells and try again,” Galvin told Marsh.

AGT’s strides

Articles in the US media (here and here) on May 26, 2021, also reported that AGT had taken a new step forward in finding a cure for HIV.

At the time, AGT announced that the first participant in their Phase 1 clinical trial had been infused with the company’s cell and gene therapy product, AGT103-T.

The first infusion took place on May 19, 2021, at the Washington Health Institute in the US.

“It was about 15 minutes to infuse about 100 millilitres that contains 1 billion HIV-specific T-cells that are immune to HIV and then after that, because now the drug is in their body, essential their cells, those modified cells are the drug, they sit for four hours of observation,” Galvin told ABC7 News.

An experimental vaccine gets tested in Soshanguve, near Pretoria in South Africa, on November 30, 2016 ( AFP / MUJAHID SAFODIEN)

No cure yet

According to the World Health Organization, there is no cure for HIV yet, but due to increasing access to effective prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care, the disease has become a manageable chronic condition.

So far, only two people in history have been cured of the virus, as reported here by AFP.

Timothy Ray Brown, also known as the “Berlin Patient”, was cured of both HIV and leukaemia in 2008 following a stem cell transplant from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that eradicated both diseases.

Brown died in September 2020 after a recurrence of leukaemia.

In 2018, “London Patient” Adam Castillejo was revealed to be in remission 19 months after undergoing a similar procedure.

In August 2020, a California woman was reported to have no traces of HIV despite not using anti-retroviral treatment nor undergoing a transplant.

It is thought she may be the first person to be cured of HIV without undergoing the risky transplant procedure.

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