A woman has been cured of HIV using umbilical cord blood, becoming the third person ever to be cured and signifying a potential new frontier in fighting the deadly virus. The mixed-race woman had already been given the treatment for leukemia, according to The New York Times. The treatment came from a partially matched donor, an uncommon practice as donors usually match the race and ethnicity of the patient. The practice also differs from the other two cases of HIV cures, which were possible through bone marrow transplants from donors with a mutation that blocked HIV infections. Researchers said the sex and racial background of this case marked a big advancement in developing a cure for HIV, as the infection is believed to progress differently in women than in men. “The fact that she’s mixed race, and that she’s a woman, that is really important scientifically and really important in terms of the community impact,” said Dr. Steven Deeks, an AIDS expert at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved in the work. However he said scientists did not see the treatment becoming the standard. “These are stories of providing inspiration to the field and perhaps the road map,” said Dr. Deeks said.
