A 53-year-old German man, known as the “Dusseldorf patient,” has become the fifth confirmed person cured of HIV. The successful treatment details were revealed in 2019, but researchers couldn’t confirm the cure at that time. Today, after more than four years off medication, researchers have confirmed that the Dusseldorf patient has no detectable virus in his body. This news is a glimmer of hope for the millions of people who live with the virus worldwide.
The Dusseldorf patient joins a small group of people who have been cured after a stem cell transplant, a high-risk procedure that effectively replaces a person’s entire immune system. The first documented case of an HIV cure was in 2009 with “the Berlin patient,” later identified as Timothy Ray Brown. “The London patient” followed in 2019, and 2022 saw “The City of Hope patient” and “The New York patient” find a cure. These patients’ cases provide insight into how we can develop a safer strategy to cure HIV.
Dr. Bjorn-Erik Ole Jensen said, “It’s really a cure, and not just, you know, long term remission.” Dr. Todd Ellerin added, “When you hear about these HIV cures, it’s obviously, you know, incredible, given how challenging it’s been. But, it still remains the exception to the rule.” The exception shows that only 1 percent of the total population carries the genetic mutation necessary to make them resistant to HIV with stem cell transplant.
Despite this, scientists remain optimistic, and Dr. Jensen said, “I think we can get a lot of insights from this patient and from these similar cases of HIV cure. These insights give us some hints where we could go to make the strategy safer.” This medical breakthrough is a step forward in advancing science and having a sort of understanding of what it takes to cure HIV. The world awaits further research to turn these exceptional cases into the norm.
