A woman appears to be cured of HIV after umbilical cord transplant

A New York City woman appears to be the third and first woman to be cured after a new stem cell transplant treatment using cord blood

Her doctors presented the case Tuesday (Feb.

Marshall Glesby, chief of infectious diseases at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian, told the Wall Street Journal: " Everything looks promising

The woman was diagnosed with HIV in 2013, The New York Times reported

Later that year, she underwent two stem cell transplants in the form of blood transfusions: one from an adult relative and another from cord blood from an unrelated newborn

There are about 38 million people living with HIV worldwide, about 73% of whom are on antiretroviral therapy, but only 3 are cured

Cord blood transplants generally do not treat cancer because transplants can take up to six weeks and there are usually very few stem cells in the cord blood

Because cord blood is more readily available than bone marrow, the researchers say the treatment may help other patients as well, The Times reported

Two other patients who had beaten HIV -- also cancer patients -- received bone marrow stem cell transplants that also carried the CCR5 mutation

In contrast, recently cured women were discharged after 17 days without GVHD

"In previous cases, we thought that graft-versus-host disease could be an important reason for HIV cure," Lewin told The Times

Scientists studying the therapy told the Guardian that most of the donors on the register were of white descent

"She's biracial and she's a woman, which is very important in science and very important in terms of community impact," Steven Deeks, an AIDS researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, told The New York Times.

Scientists aren't sure why cord blood works so well, experts told The Times

Cord blood may also contain therapeutic ingredients other than stem cells, The Times reported

"Cord stem cells are attractive," Deeks told The Times