The world’s first HIV positive heart transplant: HIV positive donor to HIV positive recipient

The world’s first heart transplant operation from a HIV positive donor to a HIV positive recipient was performed at the Montefiore Medical Centre in the Bronx (USA). It is reported that the transplant was successful. 

The heart was transplanted to a 60-year-old patient who suffered from sever heart failure. The operation lasted four hours, and the patient also received a kidney transplant at the same time. Following the operation, the patient spent five weeks in hospital, and is now discharged and regularly seeing the transplant team for monitoring.

"Thanks to significant medical advances, people living with HIV are able to control the disease so well that they can now save the lives of other people living with this condition. This surgery is a milestone in the history of organ donation and offers new hope to people who once had nowhere to turn," said Ulrich P. Jorde, MD, Section Head - Heart Failure, Cardiac Transplantation & Mechanical Circulatory Support, and Vice Chief, Division of Cardiology at Montefiore.

In 2013, the United States passed the HIV Justice Act, which allows people living with HIV to donate their organs to another HIV positive person. But, according to experts, it took almost ten years for this opportunity to become a reality for heart transplantation.