The 5th Cured AIDS Patient Emerges: Scientists Explain Recovery Process

News

The 5th Cured AIDS Patient Emerges: Scientists Explain Recovery Process

The 5th Cured AIDS Patient Emerges: Scientists Explain Recovery Process

Another AIDS patient has been cured, attracting global attention. 68-year-old American man Paul Edmund announced that, five years after a bone marrow transplant, his acute myeloid leukemia has been essentially cured, making him the fifth person globally to be cured of AIDS. To celebrate this medical miracle, his recovery case was published in the New England Journal of Medicine on February 15th.

In 1988, Edmund was first diagnosed with AIDS, and he began antiretroviral therapy in 1997 to suppress the HIV virus. However, the virus never disappeared, and its DNA remained latent in immune cells.

The turning point came with the bone marrow transplant. The donor who matched Edmund had a rare mutation in the CCR5 gene known as the delta 32 mutation.

This mutation is a congenital mutation that confers resistance to the HIV virus, and only about 1-2% of people have this mutation. After the surgery, Paul’s bone marrow and blood stem cells were completely replaced by healthy cells from the donor, and he has since shown no signs of leukemia or AIDS.

In March 2021, Edmund decided to stop taking antiretroviral drugs. After nearly three years of close monitoring, doctors confirmed that there was no trace of the HIV virus in his body.

The 5th Cured AIDS Patient Emerges: Scientists Explain Recovery Process

Who are the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Cured AIDS Patient?

The first person considered cured of HIV is Timothy Ray Brown, also known as the “Berlin Patient.” Brown was an HIV-positive man who developed leukemia. He underwent a bone marrow transplant in 2007 from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that made the donor’s cells resistant to HIV. Following the transplant, Brown no longer showed signs of HIV in his body.

The second person cured of HIV is Adam Castillejo, known as the “London Patient.” Castillejo also had HIV and developed Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He received a similar bone marrow transplant in 2016 and, like Brown, showed no signs of HIV after the transplant.

The third person cured of HIV is not as widely recognized as the first two cases but is known as the “Düsseldorf Patient.” This individual, whose identity has not been publicly disclosed, received a bone marrow transplant from a donor with the CCR5 mutation in 2013 and has since been HIV-free.

The fourth person cured of HIV is not as widely reported, but there are cases of individuals who have undergone similar bone marrow transplants and have shown no signs of the virus. However, these cases are not as well-documented or widely recognized as the first three cases.