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    Home » Man becomes fifth person cured of HIV
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    Man becomes fifth person cured of HIV

    By Katie Morris22/02/2023Updated:27/02/2023No Comments3 Mins Read
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    Man becomes fifth person cured of HIV.
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    A man in Dusseldorf, Germany, has become the fifth person cured of HIV after receiving stem cells from a donor.

    A 53-year-old man has become the fifth person cured of HIV in this way after receiving a blood stem cell transplant to treat leukaemia.

    The man is showing no signs of an active infection after receiving the treatment from a donor who is resistant to the virus.

    Man becomes fifth person cured of HIV – hope for the future

    There is hope for the future as man becomes fifth person cured of HIV.
    Credit: Flickr / ZEISS Microscopy

    Bjorn Jensen at Dusseldorf University Hospital said, “We don’t think there’s a functional virus present” after the 53-year-old has been taking antiretroviral drugs for the last four years.

    The patient was diagnosed with HIV back in 2008. Then, three years later, in 2011, the man developed leukaemia, which was treated with chemotherapy. However, the cancer returned the following year.

    As such, in 2013, the man received blood stem cells in his bone marrow that gave rise to immune cells, even cancerous ones. These cells were killed off as a result of chemotherapy and then replaced with donor blood stem cells.

    Doctors found a donor with a mutation that disables the CCR5 receptor that HIV uses to infiltrate and infect immune cells. It seems that the transplant made the man’s immune system resistant to HIV.

    The Dusseldorf patient – the latest person to be cured

    The 'Dusseldorf patient' is the most recent person to be cured.
    Credit: Flickr / NIAID

    In 2017, the team of doctors were able to stop giving the ‘Dusseldorf patient’ immunosuppressing drugs to stop the rejection of the donor cells. In November 2018, the antiretroviral treatment was stopped.

    The patient comes as the fifth person to be cured of HIV in this way after receiving cancer treatment. However, bone marrow transplantation is extremely risky.

    This means that it will never be used to treat HIV alone. An alternative approach that is being explored is using gene editing to mutate the CCR5 gene in the immune systems of those who are HIV-positive.

    Other patients – a handful of cured patients around the world

    There are a handful of cured patients around the world.
    Credit: commonswikimedia.org

    In 2007, Timothy Ray Brown, formerly referred to as the ‘Berlin patient’, became the first-ever person to be cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant to treat his leukaemia. The HIV remained undetected until his death from cancer in 2020.

    Brown was a Seattle native living in Berlin at the time of his treatment and was the only person ever cured of HIV at the time.

    The second person to be cured of HIV is a man originally known as the ‘London patient’, Adam Castillejo. He also received a stem cell transplant to help treat cancer.

    There are only a handful of people around the world who have been deemed cured of HIV. Some have involved cancer treatments, while one woman’s cure came from immune-boosting therapies as part of a clinical trial.

    The future for HIV patients sees a glimmer of hope as the number of cured patients mounts.

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    Katie Morris

      Katie Morris is the Editor of Tell Me The Good News. She has a degree in English and French which has given her the opportunity to teach English across the world. Having worked in Thailand for over two years, Katie has a keen interest in the unbelievable travel opportunities Asia has to offer. Katie currently lives in her hometown of Belfast and loves discovering all the new and exciting things to see and do all over Ireland. She has written and edited articles for a diverse range of sites, from travel around Ireland and the rest of the world to satire and news sites.

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