Fourth patient in history seemingly cured of HIV

On July 27, AIDS experts revealed that a fourth person had been “cured” of HIV. However, the risky operation for patients who were facing cancer may not provide much solace for the tens of millions of people who are HIV-positive globally. Ahead of the International AIDS Conference, which gets underway in Montreal, Canada, on Friday, the 66-year-old man, known as the “City of Hope” patient after the Californian facility where he received treatment, was told that his illness was in remission.

After experts reported in February that a US woman known as the New York patient had also entered remission, he is the second individual to be officially declared to have been cured this year.

He said in a statement: “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.”

He is one of four patients who have been treated in this fashion, and he is the oldest. Timothy Ray Brown, a “Berlin patient”,was the first in 2007.

The cure is the “holy grail”,according to the president-elect of the International Aids Society (IAS), and it provides “continuing hope and motivation” for HIV-positive people. Because non-HIV positive donors lack the receptors needed for HIV to infect cells, scientists think it works.

(With inputs from agencies)

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