Hope for HIV/AIDS Sufferers Globally: 7 People Have Been Cured

A California resident suffering from leukemia underwent a transplant in July 2022 from a donor with the rare CCR5-delta-32 gene.

He is the person who has lived with HIV the longest, at 31 years. Two years after the transplant, he stopped taking ARVs and 17 months later, HIV was still not detected in his body. He was declared HIV-free and became the oldest person at 63.

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6. The Geneva Patient – Romuald

Romuald contracted HIV when he was 18 in 1990. He started ARV treatment and was declared undetectable in 2005.

Romuald's case is particularly unusual and intriguing because he suffered from leukemia. After several rounds of chemotherapy, he finally underwent a transplant in 2018. The problem was that his donor did not have the rare CCR5-delta-32 gene, but his HIV viral load continued to decline.

He stopped ARVs and took PrEP twice in November 2021. Twenty months later, his viral load was still undetectable, and researchers are still investigating whether his virus has truly cleared.

This is a breakthrough because the donor he received did not have the rare CCR5-delta-32 gene.

Researchers are currently studying Romuald's case, which they hope will lead to new advances in HIV and AIDS treatment.

7. The Next Berlin Patient

A 60-year-old German man, who has been HIV-positive since 2009, also had leukemia and underwent a transplant like the others. What's interesting about this case is that he received a donor not from a double CCR5-delta-32 mutation, but from a single CCR5-delta-32 mutation.

This is certainly new and promising for future researchers, especially since the number of people with a single CCR5-delta-32 mutation is not as rare as those with a double CCR5-delta-32 mutation.

He underwent a transplant in 2015 and stopped taking ARVs at the end of 2018. Five and a half years later, after detailed testing, he was still HIV-free.

 

Putri Nurhidayati

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