Georgiana Head Recruitment

07.05.2009

While all the press are focusing on Swine flu, articles are beginning to finally filter through about a potential cure for HIV

Just when things really felt like they couldn't get any worse - along came Swine Flu and a raft of depressing articles in all the national press. Local companies started emailing disaster recovery plans and even the building management company for the building that Georgiana Head Recruitment is based in have put scary warning posters in the bathrooms. Yet, many of the papers have failed to mention the fact that there has been a huge advance towards a cure for HIV, an American born patient living in Berlin has been treated for both leukemia and HIV. His Haemotologist deliberately replaced the patient's bone marrow cells with those from a donor who has a naturally occurring genetic mutation that renders his cells immune to almost all strains of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The development suggests a potential new therapeutic avenue and comes as the search for a cure has adopted new urgency. Many fear that current AIDS drugs aren't sustainable. Known as antiretrovirals, the medications prevent the virus from replicating but must be taken every day for life and are expensive for poor countries where the disease runs rampant. Whilst none marrow transplants may be prohibitively expensive in the poorer countries the success of this treatment is being held by scientists as proof that gene and stem cell technology will lead to a more affordable cure. The patient has now been clear of HIV for over 2 years. This has to be a cause for celebration.