World’s First HIV-Positive to HIV-Positive Heart Transplant Performed at Montefiore Health System

The world’s first HIV-positive to HIV positive heart transplant was successfully performed in the United States in the early spring of this year. The patient, who was in her sixties, suffered from advanced heart failure. She received the organ donation at Montefiore Health System in the Bronx borough of New York City, one of only twenty-five centers in the US eligible to offer the surgery. The 2013 HIV Organ Policy Equity Act, which allowed people living with HIV to donate their organs to an HIV-positive recipient, paved the way for this type of surgery, though it has taken nearly ten years to become a reality for heart transplantation.