HIV Patient Donates Kidney To Another HIV Patient In World’s 1st!

Great news has surprised the medical world. A HIV positive woman donated her kidney on Monday. This surgery was carried out at the Johns Hopkins Medicine. The institute is located at Baltimore. The donor is from Atlanta. She donated her kidney to another HIV positive patient. Both the individuals involved in this surgery did not declare their identity.

The donor is a 36 years old female. She is working at the public consultancy department. She was infected with HIV at the age of 6 weeks. The virus entered her body through the blood transfusion process. This is an incident when the blood banks have not started regular testing of blood for virus detection.

HIV positive patients suffer from a weak immune system. The virus also prevents the body from fighting organisms which cause diseases. Everybody is applauding the donor’s kind act.

When asked for her comments, couple of days after the operation, she informed her intention is to let people know how life is when suffering from HIV. She also said if people need proof that it is possible to live with HIV, she is one. She is living her life for 35 years with this so- called fatal disease. This is almost the time span for which United States of America is suffering from the epidemic of HIV.

Dr. Dorry Segev, who is working as a professor at the School of Medicine of John Hopkins University was involved with the operation. The surgeon who did the surgery praised her bravery.

Organ donation by HIV patients was not permitted in United States till 2013. Segev lamented about their helplessness when they witnessed HIV patients dying from the lack of donors though there were several HIV donors available. The main reason for the ban on HIV donors was the virus can damage the kidney. The recent surgery proved this wrong.