According to German researchers, a man was cured of HIV after a stem cell transplant performed after numerous rounds of chemotherapy, making him the sixth known case of the virus being cured in an individual.
German researchers detailed the example of a 53-year-old patient diagnosed with HIV in 2008 in a study published in the Nature science publication.
5th Man To Undergo Stem Cell Transplant Now HIV-Free
Following their diagnosis, the patient was given antiretroviral medication (ART), which reduced the viral load in their system.
Researchers said Monday that the man, dubbed “the Düsseldorf patient,” has no detectable signs of HIV infection and had stopped taking his HIV treatment in 2019.
During a conference in 2019, the patient’s physician, Dr. Björn-Erik Ole Jensen, reported the guy showed no evidence of active HIV—though he refused to proclaim the virus “in remission.”
Jensen highlighted the virus is “really cured” and not in “long-term remission” in an interview with ABC News. Since the AIDS epidemic began in the early 1980s, more than 40 million individuals have died as a result of the disease.
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Unexpected Fact
Timothy Ray Brown, dubbed “the Berlin patient” by researchers in findings released in 2009, was the first person to be cured of HIV. Three more people have been treated, including “the London patient” in 2019, and “The City of Hope” and “New York” patients in 2022.
All four underwent stem cell transplants to treat blood cancer, a high-risk technique is commonly known as a bone marrow transplant, and obtained an HIV-resistant mutation from their donors, which deletes a protein the virus normally utilizes to enter blood cells.
38.4 million people. According to United Nations forecasts for 2021, that is how many people worldwide have HIV. There were 36.7 million adults and 1.7 million children under the age of 15.
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