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Doctors celebrate a major success in HIV treatment, having cured a second patient.
A Venezuelan from London underwent antiretroviral treatment more than two years ago. Tests now show that he is HIV negative.
In particular, a bone marrow transplant that doctors performed on the man because of cancer helped.
The BBC portal reported the success in treating the insidious HIV virus, referring to the scientific journal The Lancet HIV. Adam Castillejo (40), originally from Venezuela, received a bone marrow transplant in London. He was being treated for cancer, but the procedure also removed the HIV virus from him.
The stem cell donor was in fact a carrier of an unusual genetic mutation. It causes immunity to HIV. The Londoner is only the second patient in the world in whom HIV has been cured.
The first is Timothy Ray Brown from the United States, who is often referred to as the Berlin patient. Experts suspected that Castillejo was HIV negative already a year ago, but they are only now one hundred percent sure.
There are no traces of the virus in the man’s tissue, blood or semen. “This very likely represents a cure of HIV. However, it is not a treatment that would be widely offered to patients with HIV who are undergoing successful antiretroviral therapy,” said Ravindra Kumar Gupta of Cambridge University, who heads the research team.
