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Federal Government Approves Kidney, Liver Transplants Between Individuals With HIV

The federal government has lifted a ban that prevented kidney and liver transplants between HIV-positive individuals, in an attempt to offer them a higher chance of accessing these procedures.
Previously, transplants required approval from an institutional review board. This requirement has also been abolished under the final rule.
This new regulation “removes unnecessary barriers to kidney and liver transplants, expanding the organ donor pool and improving outcomes for transplant recipients with HIV,” HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement. “We continue to do everything in our power to increase access to life-saving organs while addressing health inequities faced by people with HIV.”
HHS said that the latest decision was taken after considering a “large body of evidence,” including recent findings from a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study showing that kidney transplants between HIV donors and HIV recipients were not worse than or inferior to transplants between non-HIV donors and HIV recipients.
The new rule came into effect on Nov. 27.
The NIH is also seeking public comments on the possibility of removing research study requirements under the HOPE Act for transplanting other organs such as lungs, pancreas, and the heart.
Researchers found that survival rates among transplant recipients were the same whether they received organs from an HIV donor or a non-HIV one. The survival rates were checked one and three years after the surgery. The risk of side effects, such as infections or rejected organs, was found to be the same.
“These findings offer hope for the thousands of people with HIV in the United States and around the world who are in need of kidney transplantation, and to many more people where HIV infection and kidney diseases are more common,” senior study investigator and transplant surgeon Dorry L. Segev said.
NYU Langone Health said that almost 90,000 Americans are awaiting kidney transplants, and those with HIV are more than twice as likely to die while waiting for the procedure.
Last year, 630,000 people died from AIDS-related causes worldwide, the report noted. This is down by 69 percent from 2004, when deaths hit a peak of 2.1 million.
“Fewer people acquired HIV in 2023 than at any point since the late 1980s. Almost 31 million people were receiving lifesaving antiretroviral therapy in 2023, a public health success that has reduced the numbers of AIDS-related deaths to their lowest level since the peak in 2004,” the report states.

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