An approximate 34 million people are now affected by the AIDS-causing virus human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Because of this, scientists all over the world have been trying to find a cure for it. And now, some doctors in Barcelona believe they might just have succeeded in doing so.

Medical professionals in Barcelona, Spain have tried curing the virus through transplanting blood from umbilical cords of those with genetic HIV resistance. The procedure has been proven successful in one patient, a 37-year old man from Barcelona who has been infected with HIV since 2009. The same patient, unfortunately, also had lymphoma and eventually died of cancer three years after the cure.

Even with this snag in the project, which was backed by Spain's National Transplant, the Spanish medical team are hopeful and positive that their procedure may be the breakthrough the medical field needs regarding the fight against HIV and AIDS.

Local Spanish website, The Local, retells how the team came about the said treatment. The doctors used Timothy Brown's case as a precedent: having developed leukemia while also being an HIV patient, Timothy Brown received bone marrow from a donor who has resistance mutation from HIV. Post-transplant results three months later showed that he was clear of the HIV.

Healthcare Global quotes the same Spanish website on how Rafael Duarte, Haematopoietic Transplant Programme Director at the Catalan Oncology Institute in Barcelona, explained the procedure for the Barcelona patient, "We suggested a transplant of blood from an umbilical cord but from someone who had the mutation because we knew from 'the Berlin patient' that as well as [ending] the cancer, we could also eradicate HIV."

The group reiterates that the current breakthrough is mostly for HIV patients who also have cancer. But they also point out that this can become a jumping point for cure of other HIV patients.