German Man Becomes Second Person to Overcome HIV Without HIV-Resistant Stem Cells: A Medical Breakthrough

A remarkable breakthrough in HIV treatment has emerged as a German man has been declared AIDS-free following a stem cell transplant originally intended to treat his blood cancer. This individual has become the seventh person worldwide to achieve HIV-free status and notably only the second to do so without receiving HIV-resistant stem cells.

The 51-year-old patient underwent the stem cell transplant in October 2015 as a treatment for leukemia. Following the transplant procedure, which included chemotherapy to eliminate most of his existing immune cells, he was discovered to be HIV-free. This outcome was particularly significant as the treatment was not specifically targeting his HIV infection.

Christian Gaebler, who heads the Laboratory for Translational Immunology of Viral Infections and the Personalised Infectious Medicine program at the Berlin Institute of Health, emphasized the importance of this case: "Seeing that a cure is possible without this resistance gives us more options for curing HIV."

By late 2018, the patient discontinued his anti-retroviral drugs (ART), medications typically essential for people living with HIV to control the virus. During his treatment process, the majority of HIV-infected cells were effectively eliminated from his system.

What makes this case unique is that doctors used stem cells with one normal copy and one mutated copy of the CCR5 gene, as HIV-resistant stem cells were unavailable. Now at 61 years old, the German man, sometimes referred to as "the next Berlin patient," has been successfully cured of HIV.

Dr. Gaebler noted the remarkable transformation: "It's amazing that 10 years ago his chances of dying of cancer were extremely high and now he's overcome this deadly diagnosis, a persistent viral infection, and he's not taking any medications – he's healthy."

Timothy Ray Brown, known as the original "Berlin patient," was the first person ever declared cured of HIV in 2008 after receiving a stem cell transplant with HIV-resistant cells. Unfortunately, Brown passed away from cancer in 2020.

According to UNAIDS statistics, if significant new initiatives to combat HIV are not implemented, approximately 35 million people could become infected between 2021 and 2050, with nearly 18 million potentially dying from AIDS-related illnesses during this period.