Earlier this spring, a woman in her 60s became the first to receive an HIV-positive to HIV-positive heart transplant. She suffered from advanced heart failure and received the donation, which happened simultaneously with a kidney transplant, during a four-hour surgery at Montefiore Health System in the Bronx. The woman spent five weeks recovering in the hospital and is currently being monitored by transplant physicians at Montefiore.
In 2013, the HIV Organ Policy Equality Act enabled people living with HIV to donate their organs to HIV-positive recipients, but this is the first time this opportunity has been able to happen for heart transplantation. Montefiore is one of just 25 centers in the U.S. that is able to offer the procedure after it met surgical benchmarks and outcomes set by the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.
As stated by Dr. Ulrich P. Jorde, with the Division of Cardiology at Montefiore and a professor of medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, this procedure is a “milestone in the history of organ donation.”
Read the full story on NBC News: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/worlds-first-hiv-positive-hiv-positive-heart-transplant-performed-nyc-rcna40797
For the full press release from Montefiore, visit: https://www.montefiore.org/body.cfm?id=1738&action=detail&ref=2194
