Fourth patient cured of HIV, doctors say

PanARMENIAN.Net - A man who has lived with HIV since the 1980s seems to have been cured in only the fourth such case, say doctors, the BBC reports.

He was given a bone marrow transplant to treat blood cancer leukaemia from a donor who was naturally resistant to the virus.

The 66-year-old, who does not want to be identified, has stopped taking HIV medication. He said he was "beyond grateful" the virus could no longer be found in his body.

The man is known as the "City of Hope" patient after the hospital where he was treated in Duarte, California. Many of his friends died from HIV in the era before antiretroviral drugs could give people a near-normal life expectancy.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) damages the body's immune system. This can lead to Aids (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) and the body struggling to fight off infection.

In a statement, the man said: "When I was diagnosed with HIV in 1988, like many others, I thought it was a death sentence. "I never thought I would live to see the day that I no longer have HIV."

However, he was given the therapy not for his HIV, but because he developed the blood cancer leukaemia at the age of 63. The man's medical team decided he needed a bone marrow transplant to replace his cancerous blood cells. By coincidence, the donor was resistant to HIV.

The City of Hope patient was closely monitored after the transplant, and levels of the HIV became undetectable in his body. He has now been in remission for more than 17 months.

The first time this happened was in 2011 when Timothy Ray Brown - known as the Berlin Patient - became the first person in the world to be cured of HIV. There have now been three similar cases in the past three years.