A German citizen could become part of a ground-breaking medical achievement after apparently being cured of HIV - a feat that has been achieved by just six people worldwide in the more than four decades since the AIDS epidemic began.
The German, who prefers to remain anonymous, was treated for acute myeloid leukemia (AML) with a stem cell transplant in October 2015. In September 2018, he stopped taking his antiretroviral medication, which is taken as treatment to keep his HIV levels low.
The man has remained in a state of "viral remission," meaning that repeat tests have not detected any traces of HIV in his system.
In a statement about his condition, the man said, "A healthy person has many desires, and a sick person has only one."
The case is expected to be presented soon at the International AIDS Conference in Munich.
This man is the seventh in the world who appears to have been cured of the virus. However, experts have cooled enthusiasm with the warning that the treatment the virus carriers have undergone will only be available to a few - all patients have contracted the virus and later developed blood cancer, necessitating stem cell transplants to treat the malignancy.
The bone marrow donors had immune cells with rare resistance to the HIV virus, which likely helped eliminate all copies of the virus in the patients' systems. I BGNES
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