A man known as the “Geneva patient” has become the sixth person in the world to be cured of HIV after a stem cell transplant for cancer treatment.
Key points
- There have been five other known cases of people who have been cured of HIV – meaning they have been declared in long-term remission. However, the case of Geneva patient is so far unique.
- He’s the only one who received stem cells from a donor who does not have a rare gene mutation – CCR5 – that blocks HIV from entering cells.
- The other patients who were previously cured of HIV were in Berlin, London, Düsseldorf, New York, and at the medical centre City of Hope in California.
- In 2018, the Geneva patient received a stem cell transplant to fight a form of a particularly aggressive form of leukemia.
- Despite the fact that the transplant wasn’t from someone carrying the CCR5 gene, the Geneva patient was still cured of HIV, with the virus being undetectable after he stopped antiretroviral therapy, which reduces the amount of HIV in the blood.
