HIV-Negative Baby Born to Japanese Couple After Artificial Insemination Using Sperm From HIV-Positive Man
In what Japanese newspapers call the "first successful birth using HIV-infected sperm" in the country, a Japanese woman this summer gave birth to an HIV-negative infant at Tottori University Hospital, Agence France-Presse reports. The woman was inseminated with sperm from her husband, a hemophiliac who contracted HIV from contaminated blood products, after receiving permission from the hospital's ethics committee. The sperm was spun in a centrifuge to separate out the virus and was then "subjected to the so-called 'swim-up' method," whereby doctors extract only active sperm for insemination in an attempt to lessen the odds of HIV transmission. According to the Yomiuri, a Japanese daily newspaper, the odds of infection were one in 4,000 even after undergoing both procedures. Both mother and infant have tested HIV-negative. News of the birth follows the announcement in August that two women at Niigata University Hospital became pregnant by using sperm from their HIV-positive husbands that had been treated by a similar method. The women are due to give birth later this year and early next year, according to the Yomiuri (Yomiuri, 10/2).
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