People with HIV can now receive kidney or liver transplants from donors with the virus. The objective is to reduce waiting lists in the United States.
People with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) who need a kidney or liver transplant will now be able to receive the organ from deceased donors with the virus.
The information was given by the United States Department of Health, this Tuesday, cited by the newspaper The Guardian, at a time when this type of transplants was only carried out as part of studies.
The new rule, which takes effect on Wednesday, November 27, aims to shorten the wait for organs for everyone, regardless of their HIV status, by increasing the availability of available organs.
"This rule removes all unnecessary barriers to kidney and liver transplants, expands the supply of donor organs, and improves outcomes for transplant recipients with HIV," says U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra in a statement. statement.
The safety of the practice is supported by studies, including one published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine.
This study followed 198 organ recipients over four years, and compared those who received kidney transplants from HIV-positive donors with those from people without the virus. Both groups had high overall survival rates and low organ rejection rates.
In 2010, surgeons in South Africa provided the first evidence that organ donation by HIV-positive people was safe for people with HIV. But the practice was not allowed in the United States until 2013, when the government lifted the ban and allowed research studies.
At first, studies used deceased donors, but in 2019, a team of researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore performed the world's first kidney transplant from a living donor with the HIV virus to an HIV-positive recipient.
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