A third person with HIV has been successfully treated by scientists. The guy known only as ‘the Düsseldorf patient’ was given a stem cell transplant that also treated his leukaemia, curing him of the potentially fatal condition. Before, the high-risk technique successfully treated two more individuals. The two illnesses also afflicted the patients in Berlin and London.
In the journal Nature Medicine, specifics of the most recent success story, also known as the Düsseldorf patient, have been made public.
Although the patient’s name was kept confidential, the research showed that he is 53 years old and was given an HIV diagnosis in 2008. Acute myeloid leukaemia, a blood malignancy that can be fatal, was discovered in him three years later.
As per the study, ‘this third case of HIV-1 cure’ provides ‘valuable insights that will hopefully guide future cure strategies.’
In 2013, the Duesseldorf patient underwent a bone marrow transplant using stem cells from a female donor that had a rare mutation in her CCR5 gene. As per AFP, this gene mutation has been found to stop HIV from entering cells.
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