Only One Man In History Has Been Cured Of HIV

Re-post from 25 Doctors Health Facts:

Despite advances in the treatment of HIV infection, there is actually still no cure for the disease.

As strange as this might sound, a certain man named Timothy Ray Brown was medically "cured" of HIV in 2008. So how did this happen?

Timothy Ray Brown had been on anti-retroviral drugs to suppress HIV for 11 years, until he was diagnosed with leukemia (a cancer of white blood cells) . After a failed attempt at chemotherapy, his doctors decided to give him a stem cell transplant to treat his cancer.

The donor in this stem cell transplant had a genetic mutation that prevented HIV from gaining entry into his cells (actually less than 1% of the world's population is resistant to HIV infection because of this mutation).

After the transplant, his body produced cells that were resistant to infection by HIV. In the end, he became both HIV and cancer free!

The question that might come to mind is why this method hasn't been carried out on the millions of people who live with HIV globally. The answer lies in practicability- transplants are complex procedures that need excellent donor-recipient matches and involve the use of immuno-suppressant medication (drugs that decrease a person's immunity). It would be impractical to apply this method on a large scale.

This kind of transplant was also performed on two HIV positive patients in Boston. The procedure was not successful in curing the HIV infection- although the patients were transplanted with cells that were not resistant to HIV.

Up till date, Timothy Ray Brown is the only man in history that has been cured from HIV. He is often referred to as the "Berlin patient" as his stem cell transplant was carried out by doctors in Berlin, Germany.