A New York City hospital has successfully performed the world’s first HIV-positive to HIV-positive heart transplant, paving the way for future HIV-positive organ transplants, according to a Montefiore Health System press release. The patient, a woman in her 60s experiencing advanced heart failure, underwent a four-hour surgery transplant in the spring and spent five weeks recovering. She is now being monitored by Montefiore doctors. During the surgery, she also received an HIV-positive kidney, which was also successfully taken. “Thanks to significant medical advances, people living with HIV are able to control the disease so well that they can now save the lives of other people living with this condition. This surgery is a milestone in the history of organ donation and offers new hope to people who once had nowhere to turn,” said one cardiologist at Montefiore. The medical achievement comes nearly a decade after the HIV Organ Policy Equity Act allowed HIV-positive people to donate organs to save other HIV-positive patients.
