Patient second in the world 'to be cleared of HIV virus', say researchers

Second patient cleared of HIV virus Credit:

A London hospital patient is the second person in the world to be cleared of the Aids virus, doctors have said.

The male patient has achieved "sustained remission" from HIV after being treated at Hammersmith Hospital in west London, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust said.

The case report, carried out by researchers at UCL and Imperial College London, together with teams at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, comes ten years after the first such case, known as the ‘Berlin Patient.’

In 2003, the male patient was diagnosed with HIV infection and developed an Aids defining cancer, advanced Hodgkin's Lymphoma, in 2012.

In 2016, he received a transplant of haematopoietic stem cells from a donor carrying a genetic mutation in the HIV receptor CCR5, which hinders the HIV virus from entering human cells.

He has now been in remission for 18 months after his antiretroviral drugs were discontinued. Professor Ravindra Gupta from the University of Cambridge, who led the study while at UCL, said:

Similar therapy has been successful once before with "Berlin Patient" Timothy Ray Brown, a US man treated in Germany 12 years ago who is still free of HIV.

Mr Brown said he would like to meet the London patient and would encourage him to go public because "it's been very useful for science and for giving hope to HIV-positive people, to people living with HIV".

According to the World Health Organization, there were approximately 36.9 million people worldwide living with HIV/AIDS in 2017 and only 59% of these are receiving ARV. Drug-resistant HIV is a growing concern. Almost one million people die annually from HIV-related causes.

Professor Gupta added: "By achieving remission in a second patient using a similar approach, we have shown that the Berlin Patient was not an anomaly, and that it really was the treatment approaches that eliminated HIV in these two people."

The approach is not appropriate as a standard HIV treatment due to the toxicity of chemotherapy, he warned, but said he is "hopeful" it will help them develop strategies that might eliminate HIV altogether.