Vall d'Hebron Hospital performs Spain’s first transplant between two HIV-positive people 

Barcelona’s Vall d'Hebron University Hospital has performed the first transplant in Spain between two people positive with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). 

The surgery was a kidney transplant from a living donor to his friend. 

The recipient suffered from chronic glomerulonephritis that forced him to undergo hemodialysis. 

The transplant was successful and the recipient and donor are doing well. 

Both the donor and recipient met the usual requirements for this type of operation, what was unique was that the donor had HIV. 

The hospital carries out one or two kidney transplants to people with HIV each year, but never before from a donor with the virus. 

The Vall d'Hebron hospital tried to carry out a procedure of this nature three years ago, but was unable to because of regulation that did not allow it. 

The regulation that prohibited the use of organs from people with HIV dated back to 1987, and in 2025 Spain repealed it. 

There is a risk, with this procedure, of the recipient becoming infected with a different variant of HIV, known as superinfection, but it is "quite exceptional," according to Jordi Navarro, a doctor from the Infectious Diseases Service at the hospital. 

He adds that this procedure puts people with HIV on equal footing with the rest of the population. 

In Catalonia there are around 35,000 people with the virus and between 400 and 500 new cases.

After the repeal of this regulation, the national protocol that regulates the procedure was approved in May 2026. 

With this change, people with HIV can now donate their organs if they wish.