Becker's Hospital Review

145 FINANCE CMO / CARE DELIVERY Woman may be first person cured of HIV without treatment By Gabrielle Masson A 66-year-old woman who was infected with HIV in 1992 may be the first person cured of the virus without medication or a bone-marrow transplant, reported The New York Times. Researchers examined blood cells in a way never possible before and published the findings Aug. 26 in Nature. The research suggests a new mechanism in which the body may suppress HIV. Scientists ana- lyzed 1.5 billion blood cells from Loreen Willenberg, whose body has suppressed HIV for decades after infection, and found no trace of the virus. Only two other people have been declared cured of HIV, both of whom underwent bone-marrow transplants for cancer. Researchers also say the virus ap- peared to be sequestered in such a way that it could not reproduce in an additional 63 people. Such find- ings indicate that a small number of patients taking antiretroviral ther- apy may similarly be able to sup- press HIV and stop taking the drugs. "It does suggest that treatment it- self can cure people, which goes against all the dogma," said Steve Deeks, MD, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and a study author. "It's certainly encouraging, but speculative," said Una O'Doherty, MD, PhD, a virologist at Philadel- phia-based University of Pennsyl- vania. "I need to see more before I would say, 'Oh, she's cured.'" "The real challenge, of course, is how you can intervene to make this relevant to the 37 million people living with HIV," Dr. Sharon Lewin, director of the Peter Doherty Insti- tute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne, Australia, told The New York Times. n New York City's COVID-19 death rate comparable to 1918 flu pandemic, study finds By Mackenzie Bean N ew York City's spike in deaths amid the COVID-19 pandemic this spring was comparable to the death toll at the peak of the 1918 flu pandemic, a study published in JAMA Network Open found. Researchers compared data on all-cause mortality in New York City for the two- month period ending May 11 and the peak two months of the 1918 flu pan- demic. They used data from the CDC, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and the U.S. Census Bureau for the analysis. During the peak two months of the 1918 pandemic, 31,589 deaths occurred in New York City among 5.5 million residents. These figures translate into an inci- dent rate of 287.2 deaths per 100,000 person-months — a common metric used to denote deaths over time, according to The New York Times. This spring, 33,465 all-cause deaths occurred in New York City among 8.3 million residents. This translates to an incident rate of 202.08 deaths per 100,000 per- son-months — just 29.6 percent lower than during the 1918 pandemic. "For anyone who doesn't understand the magnitude of what we're living through, this pandemic is comparable in its effect on mortality to what every- one agrees is the previous worst pandemic," study author Jeremy Faust, MD, an emergency physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, told The Washington Post. n Clinicians warn of Benadryl overdoses linked to viral TikTok challenge By Mackenzie Bean C linicians are warning about a viral social media challenge on TikTok that encourages people to take excess doses of Benadryl to get high or hallucinate. In late August, a 15-year-old Oklahoma girl reportedly died of a Benadryl overdose aer attempting the challenge, according to Oklahoma City's local station KFOR-TV. Cook Children's Health Care System in Fort Worth, Texas, also sounded the alarm about the "Benadryl challenge" aer treating three teenagers who overdosed on the over-the-counter allergy medication in May. "What struck me was that we had three teens come in for the same thing in one week," Amber Jewison, a hospitalist nurse practitioner at Cook Children's, said in a news release. "None of these patients were trying to harm themselves. ey all said they saw videos on TikTok and were curious to try it." Taking too much Benadryl can cause an elevated heart rate, arrhythmias, hallucinations and seizures, among other dangerous side effects, Ms. Jewison said. n

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