A stem cell transplant has cured a man of HIV, researchers have announced.
The patient, 53, is only the third person to be cured of the condition using the treatment.
He appears to be the fifth person in total to be cured overall.
He had not taken anti-retroviral medicine, or suppressants, for four years and has not relapsed.
Similar to the other two stem cell transplant patients – one in Berlin and another in London – the man, in Dusseldorf, had the transplant to treat a blood disorder, which in his case was leukaemia, that had developed alongside the HIV infection.
More than 10 years after the transplant and four years after ending his HIV therapy, he is in good health.
“I still remember very well the sentence of my family doctor: ‘Don’t take it so hard. We will experience together that HIV can be cured’,” he said.
“At the time, I dismissed the statement as an alibi. Today, I am all the more proud of my worldwide team of doctors who succeeded in curing me of HIV – and at the same time, of course, of leukaemia.
