Kidney transplant infuses new life into HIV+ patient from Ghana

Kolkata: An HIV-positive patient from Ghana, who was battling renal failure, got a fresh lease on life in Kolkata — some 9,700km from his native place. The 52-year-old underwent a successful transplant, with the kidney donated by his younger brother, at a city private hospital. Both the brothers have been discharged from the hospital.

This live transplant on a Ghana national scored on two counts — the recipient being HIV-positive and the transplant being ABO incompatible, where the blood groups of the recipient and donor do not match.

The school teacher from Tema in Ghana was detected with HIV in 2011 and has been on ART drugs. He has been suffering from kidney disease since 2015 and has been on dialysis for some years now.

“We landed in Kolkata in March after contacting the doctors. The doctors needed thorough evaluation of the recipient as well as the donor — both are my cousins — because the recipient is HIV-positive and their blood groups do not match,” said Daniel, who accompanied the duo to Kolkata.

Doctors said transplant surgery was treated as a contra-indication for HIV patients earlier. But with advanced ART drugs that can suppress the viral load considerably, the doctors now have started conducting such transplant surgeries. Sources, however, said kidney transplants in HIV-positive patients have been far and few.

“There were two significant challenges. The immunosuppressant used on transplant patients can flare up the HIV infection. And then this was an ABO incompatible transplant. We roped in our infectious diseases specialist Bisakh Bhattacharya, who worked extensively on adjusting his drugs, including that of HIV and immunosuppressants,” said Pratik Das, senior nephrologist at RTIICS, where the transplant took place.

While the recipient’s blood was ‘O’ negative, his brother Joshua Adugyamfi (31), who donated the kidney, was ‘A’ positive. In case of non-matching blood, the recipient’s blood has antibodies against that of the donor. But with advancement in medical science, it is now possible to filter out the antibody and suppress its production in the recipient. The 52-year old recipient was admitted in the hospital on August 12 for this procedure.

The recipient and the donor were put under the knife on September 27, where a team of surgeons Tapas Kumar Saha and Tarshid Ali Jahangir conducted the transplant surgery with the help of anaesthesiologist Titisha Mitra. The recipient was discharged from hospital on October 9.