MINNEAPOLIS — Doctors at the University of Minnesota Amplatz Children’s Hospital are hoping a cord blood transplant will cure a boy diagnosed with HIV and leukemia.

If successful, doctors say the 12-year-old boy would be only the second person in the world to be cured of HIV. The boy had the transplant Tuesday. The procedure has some similarities to a bone marrow transplant in that cord blood and bone marrow both contain blood-forming cells.

KARE-TV reports it could be two or three months before doctors know if the transplant is successful.