London Patient cleared of HIV raises hope for cure

An HIV-positive patient in London has been cleared of the virus after getting a bone marrow transplant to treat lymphoma, raising hopes for possible cure through stem cell transplant.

He has remained in HIV remission despite being taken off antiretroviral therapy, 19 months after the bone marrow transplant from a CCR5 negative donor for Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The first was Berlin Patient, Timothy Brown, who has remained free of HIV and off ART since a similar bone marrow transplant 12 years ago.

The International AIDS Society has welcomed the announcement.

“Although it is not a viable large-scale strategy for a cure, it does represent a critical moment in the search for an HIV cure,” IAS president Anton Pozniak.

“These new findings reaffirm our belief that there exists a proof of concept that HIV is curable. The hope is that this will eventually lead to a safe, cost-effective and easy strategy to achieve these results using gene technology or antibody techniques.”