


Kidney transplants from HIV-positive donors are now permitted by U.S. health officials.
The Department of Health and Human Services made the decision on Tuesday, which is expected to reduce wait times for all patients and improve life-saving care for patients with HIV.
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“This rule removes unnecessary barriers to kidney and liver transplants, expanding the organ donor pool and improving outcomes for transplant recipients with HIV,” U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement.
Patients will be able to receive kidney transplants from HIV-positive donors beginning this Wednesday. This comes after a study published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine that revealed it was safe.
Christine Durand, a professor of medicine and oncology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, led the study, which followed 198 organ recipients for up to four years. Ninety-nine of them received a kidney from an HIV-positive donor, and the other 99 received a kidney from a donor without the disease.
Both groups had high success rates, with Durand calling it a “boring study.”
“It really emphasized the safety of this: There were no significant differences,” Durand told the Washington Post.
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South African scientists began looking at the safety of organ transplants with HIV-positive donors in 2010. After showing evidence that it was safe, the U.S. government lifted a 25-year ban on the practice in 2012 through the HIV Organ Policy Equity Act. However, these organ transplants were only allowed to occur in research studies. Johns Hopkins performed the first transplant in 2016.
“On the East Coast, where the demand is high, the wait-list can be two to five years,” Durand told the outlet. “For people with HIV, the wait time is often longer. This should reduce wait times overall.”