{"id":517713,"date":"2026-07-25T18:12:33","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T22:12:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.net\/en\/uncategorized\/vall-dhebron-hospital-completes-the-first-transplant-in-spain-between-people-with-hiv\/"},"modified":"2026-07-25T18:12:33","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T22:12:33","slug":"vall-dhebron-hospital-completes-the-first-transplant-in-spain-between-people-with-hiv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/uncategorized\/vall-dhebron-hospital-completes-the-first-transplant-in-spain-between-people-with-hiv\/","title":{"rendered":"Vall d\u2019Hebron Hospital completes the first transplant in Spain between people with HIV"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Barcelona.- <\/strong>The Vall d\u2019Hebron Hospital in Barcelona has successfully completed Spain’s first transplant<\/a> between two living people with HIV, specifically a kidney transplant, after the legal ban on these procedures between patients with an infection that, to this day, is still a source of stigma, was lifted last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team of doctors at the Barcelona hospital who performed this procedure explained this Friday, in a press conference, that both the recipient and the donor, who are middle-aged and have preferred to remain anonymous, are in good health following the intervention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor have they suffered problems due to the combinations of their own medication after receiving a transplant\u2014the immunosuppressants to prevent rejection of the new kidney\u2014and the usual antiretroviral treatment regimen for HIV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Spain, the order authorizing transplants between HIV-positive donors and recipients was approved in 2025, repealing a 1987 regulation that prohibited it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, since 2005, people with this virus have been able to receive organs from HIV-negative donors, provided they met a series of requirements, such as having an undetectable viral load or one that is suppressible through antiretroviral treatment and having not presented opportunistic infections, except for tuberculosis, esophageal candidiasis, or Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We recommend reading:Master cabinetmaker dies after being struck by a water truck in Barrio Blanco, Jarabacoa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Europe, only six countries expressly allow transplants between two people with HIV, which has resulted in around 70 kidney transplants since 2011, concentrated essentially in the United Kingdom, Italy, and France, although all of them from deceased donors; there are only two recorded cases from living donors, explained the Director General of the National Transplant Organization (ONT), Beatriz Dom\u00ednguez-Gil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Complying with a right<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The director of the ONT has highlighted that the legal change allows “making effective the right of people with HIV infection to be organ donors if they so wish.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Every year, 50 people with HIV wait for an organ in Spain: 30 for a kidney transplant, 15 for a liver transplant, and 5 for a heart, lung, or pancreas transplant, according to data from the ONT.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Thus, lifting this legal impediment can also contribute to alleviating waiting lists,” stated Albert Sandiumenge, coordinator of the Donation and Transplant Programs at Vall d\u2019Hebron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For his part, the section chief of the Kidney Transplant Unit at the same hospital, Francesc Josep Moreso, explained that the recipient patient needed a kidney transplant due to chronic glomerulonephritis, unrelated to HIV, and that he knew the donor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this case, “the exceptional nature was provided by the donor, because it had never been done with a living donor since the law did not allow it, so the most complex part was verifying that it met all the requirements,” he\/she stated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Infectious disease specialist Jordi Navarro has detailed, for his part, that they verified that the donor had their HIV infection under control, which is achieved with antiretrovirals, which mean there is not even a risk of infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stigma persists<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

However, Navarro has emphasized that the fact that the two patients, recipient and donor, have wished to remain anonymous -they have not attended the press conference- “explains the stigma that still exists” for people with HIV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Combined antiretroviral therapy (ART) has transformed HIV infection into a treatable chronic disease, with no risk of infection and a life expectancy similar to that of the general population.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For this reason, people with HIV on treatment, with a suppressed viral load or good control of the virus, present health problems comparable to those of the rest of the population, as has occurred in this pioneering case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regarding the surgical intervention, the fact that the patients had HIV did not change the usual kidney transplant procedure at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Urologist Enric Trilla explained that the intervention lasted four hours and was performed using robotic surgery, which means “less physical impact for the patient than conventional surgery, as it reduces the risk of infection, promotes postoperative recovery, and decreases abdominal wall complications.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barcelona.- The Vall d\u2019Hebron Hospital in Barcelona has successfully completed Spain’s first transplant between two living people with HIV, specifically a kidney transplant, after the legal ban on these procedures between patients with an infection that, to this day, is still a source of stigma, was lifted last year. The team of doctors at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133556,"featured_media":517714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-517713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phj1q1-2aGd","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/TRASPLANTE.webp","dum_api":{"author_name":"Yerandi Santana","author_image":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/cropped-WhatsApp-Image-2026-02-13-at-5.35.07-PM-96x96.jpeg","categories_name":["Uncategorized"],"featured_media_url":"https:\/\/cdn.deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2026\/07\/TRASPLANTE.webp"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133556"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517713\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deultimominuto.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}