A man was tested for HIV in 2003 earlier may be the second patient in the world to be cured of AIDS.
To treat the Hodgkin’s cancer he had chemotherapy and, in addition, stem cells were implanted into the patient from a donor resistant to HIV, leading to both his cancer and HIV going into remission.
Reuters reports that the man, whose identity has not been revealed, has tested negative for the virus almost three years after he received a bone marrow transplant from a donor with an HIV-resistant genetic mutation. The man stopped taking antiretroviral drugs 18 months ago.
Although there is no confirmation that this can be a cure for millions of people because the treatment received by the patient is for cancer but not for HIV and it is too early to come to any conclusion. But it may open some doors to evaluate the virus and diagnose in a different methodology.
Prof Eduardo Olavarria, also involved in the research, from Imperial College London, said the success of stem cell transplantation offered hope that new strategies could be developed to tackle the virus. “The treatment is not appropriate as a standard HIV treatment because of the toxicity of chemotherapy, which in this case was required to treat the lymphoma,” he added.
A similar case was found 10 years ago with the patient name Timothy Ray Brown, an American man then living in Germany and widely known as the “Berlin patient,” underwent a similar procedure in 2007 and is reportedly still HIV-free.
Approximately, 38.4 million people are currently infected with HIV globally, with about 5,000 new infections per day and more than 940,000 people have died from AIDS or related illnesses.
