1st live organ transplant between HIV patients performed at Johns Hopkins

Surgeons at Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Hospital on March 25 performed the first kidney transplant between a living HIV-positive donor and an HIV-positive recipient, reports The Washington Post.

Three things to know:

1. As of March 28, both patients were recovering in the hospital. For the first time in a year, the transplant recipient no longer requires dialysis.

2. The donor, 35-year-old Nina Martinez, and the recipient, who wished to remain anonymous, have different strains of the virus. Both will take antiretroviral medications indefinitely to control their infections.

3. Surgeons across the U.S. have performed 116 organ transplants from deceased HIV-positive donors to HIV-positive recipients. This surgery is the first such transplant involving a living HIV-positive donor. The medical breakthrough could help increase the pool of available organs for the 1.1 million Americans living with HIV, according to The Washington Post.

"Society perceives me, and people like me, as people who bring death," Ms. Martinez told the publication March 23. "And I can't figure out any better way to show that people like me can bring life."

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