World's First HIV-Positive Organ Transplants Performed in South Africa

World's First HIV-Positive Organ Transplants Performed in South Africa

14:50, October 24th 2008

Johannesburg - The world's first organ transplants from an HIV-positive donor to HIV-positive recipients took place in Cape Town recently, South Africa's Mail & Guardian weekly newspaper reported Friday.

Two kidney transplants were carried out at Cape Town's Groote Schuur hospital in September, the paper reported.

The surgeon, who carried out the operations, Dr Elmi Muller, said the operations had been highly successful and both male recipients of the kidneys had been discharged from hospital and were doing well.

Before now, the organs of HIV-positive donors were simply discarded, the report said. Until recently, HIV-positive patients were also not eligible for organ transplants.

A consultant nephrologist interviewed by the paper said that, while giving HIV-negative organs was better for patients, most HIV-positive patients were open to accepting an HIV-positive kidney.

At one Johannesburg hospital, dialysis patients wait on average four years for a kidney, according to the report.

But receiving an HIV-infected organ is not without risks for the patient.

In receiving donated organs, they can receive a new strain of HIV. If the strain is a drug-resistant strain, the recipient could also develop resistance to life-prolonging anti-retroviral drugs.

In South Africa, HIV drug resistance is still relatively low.

Another fear is that the donor's organs may have been damaged by the illness - a factor that would shorten the life span of the organ.

The patients in Cape Town had weighed up the risks against the prospect of a life on dialysis or premature death and opted to take the risk, Muller told the Mail & Guardian.

South Africa has the highest number of HIV-positive people in the world, meaning a large proportion of organ donors are HIV-positive.

An estimated 5.7 million, out of a total 48 million South Africans, are infected with HIV.

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