LONDON — An HIV-positive man in London might be the second person to be cured of the virus, according to a case study published Tuesday in the journal “Nature”.
The report comes a decade after the first patient, Timothy Ray Brown, was clinically cured of his HIV-1 infection after receiving a stem cell transplant from an HIV-resistant donor.
Like Brown, the man from London received a stem cell transplant from a virus-resistant donor.
Doctors say he has been virus-free since receiving the transplant in 2016 and in remission for 18 months after stopping antiretroviral drugs (medications that help suppress the virus.)
“By achieving remission in a second patient using a similar approach, we have shown that the Berlin Patient was not an anomaly and that it really was the treatment approaches that eliminated HIV in these two people,” said Ravindra Gupta, lead author of the study and a professor in University College London’s Division of Infection and Immunity.
Tests have shown there is no “measurable trace of the virus” in the man’s body, but Dr. Gupta says it is still “too early to say” if the London patient has been cured of HIV.
(Photo by China Photos/Getty.)
