First verified HIV Cure reported

By Joshua Dziba

A man in Germany appears to be the first, and perhaps only authentic case of a medically documented cure of HIV, after a publication came out on December 8th, 2010 reporting the first successful cure of a once HIV positive patient, using stem cell transplantation.

The report appearing in the weekly medical  journal, BLOOD, published by the American Society of Hematology provides peer-reviewed documentation of a case that has been followed for several years now by such news outlets as CNN and reputable HIV/AIDS portals such as TheBody.com.

The German researchers led by Dr. Gero Hütter first reported on the successful control of the HIV infection in the “Berlin Patient” in 2009, in a report which appeared in the highly regarded medical journal, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM).  In the current report, Dr. Hütter’s team directly challenge an editorial that appeared along with their first report in the NEJM, by asserting that their results “strongly suggest that cure of HIV has been achieved in this patient”.

Several claims have been made in the past by various media outlets, that a cure for HIV had been discovered in one arena or the other.  However, the “Berlin Patient”, as the now 42/43 year old American male patient reported on by Dr. Hütter’s team, has come to be known in the medical community is the most intriguing medical case of them all, and now perhaps the first substantiated successful case of an HIV cure.

The Berlin Patient presented to Dr. Hütter’s team in 2007, at 40 years of age, and having been diagnosed with HIV 10 years prior. The patient presented with newly diagnosed acute myeloid leukemia (a type of blood cancer), and had been on Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART) for the previous 4 months, with no HIV related illness.  The patient subsequently received a transplantation of stem cells expressing mutations in both copies of the CCR5 receptor, called CCR5 delta32.  The CCR5 receptor has been the target of extensive research in the quest for effective HIV/AIDS therapies, as it is reported to be a critical component required for the HIV virus to successfully invade and subsequently destroy human immune cells.

The Berlin Patient has shown no detectable signs of any ongoing HIV infection since the stem cell transplantation procedure,  even though he stopped taking HIV medications after the transplantation procedure in 2007.  Doctors have conducted the most sensitive testing available, to detect any HIV virus still present in the patient’s body, but so far, none has been detected.

Stunning as the reported breakthrough is, the cure reported here is unlikely to be accessible to the wider population.  Stem cell transplantation is a risky and extreme procedure, and is unlikely to become a routine therapeutic procedure for the millions of HIV infected patients.