Earlier this year doctors announced that a man from London the world was cured of the deadly virus – HIV
The London man – Adam Castillejo has been free of the virus for more than 30 months after stopping antiretroviral therapy.
Adam was however not cured by the HIV drugs bt a stem-cell treatment. BBC also reported that he also hand, the Lancet HIV journal reports.
The donors of the stem cells possess an uncommon gene that provides them protection against HIV.
Back in 2011, Timothy Brown, the “Berlin Patient” became the first person reported to have been cure of HIV, three and half years after receiving similar treatment.
The treatment
This treatment – stem-cell transplant is said to stop the virus from replicating inside the body by replacing the patient’s own immune cells with donor cells that resist HIV infection.
Doctors say Adam Castillejo the 40-year-old “London Patient” has no detectable active HIV infection in his body fluids – blood, saliva, semen or his body tissues
It now over a year since the doctors announced he was clear of the virus and still remains free of HIV.
Lead researcher Prof Ravindra Kumar Gupta, from the University of Cambridge, told BBC News: “This represents HIV cure with almost certainty.
“We have now had two and a half years with anti-retroviral-free remission.
“Our findings show that the success of stem-cell transplantation as a cure for HIV, first reported nine years ago in the Berlin Patient, can be replicated.”
Stem-cell transplantation treatment, however, will not be available for the millions of people around the world living with HIV.
Doctors say the aggressive therapy was originally used to treat cancer patients and not for HIV.
They added the current HIV drug still remains very effective and those with the virus can live long and healthy lives.
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“It is important to note that this curative treatment is high-risk and only used as a last resort for patients with HIV who also have life-threatening hematological malignancies,” Prof Gupta said as reported by BBC.
“Therefore, this is not a treatment that would be offered widely to patients with HIV who are on successful antiretroviral treatment.”
But the Professor notes that the treatment offers hope of finding a cure, in the future, using gene therapy.
Whether it is a permanent cure
According to the research, 99% of the patients (Castillejo’s) cells have been replaced by donor cells but there are still traces of the virus in his body.
For this reason, it is impossible to rule out the possibility of the virus coming back.
