A MAN is still in remission from HIV five years after receiving a stem cell transplant to treat his leukaemia, doctors have revealed.
The patient was 63 when he received the transplant in 2019, becoming the fourth in the world and oldest to go into long-term remission from the killer condition.
Nicknamed the City of Hope patient, after the hospital in California where he was treated, he lived with the virus for 31 years and had suffered a stage of AIDS, which tragically took many of his friends in the 80s.
The latest medical update, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, confirmed the unidentified man is still living disease-free, five years after he was first treated.
Doctors said: “At the time of this report, the patient remains in remission from HIV and AML while receiving topical treatment for oral graft-versus-host disease.
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“This case has shown that older patients who are undergoing reduced-intensity conditioning hematopoietic-cell transplantation for the treatment of cancer may be cured of HIV-1 infection.”
Just over 106,00 people in Britain were living with HIV in 2020, latest data show.
Advancements in medicine mean patients are now able to live with the disease and reduce the virus to undetectable levels in the body, reducing their risk of passing it on to others.
Two more people have been declared free from HIV since the City of Hope patient, taken the total now to six , including the Berlin, London, Dusseldorf, New York and Geneva patients.
All had bone marrow transplants to treat serious cases of cancer.
They all received stem cells from a donor with a mutation of the CCR5 gene, apart from the Geneva patient.
This mutation is known to block HIV from entering the body's cells.
The City of Hope patient received the same transplant after taking antiretroviral therapy (ART) for 30 years.
I never thought I would live to see the day that I no longer have HIV. I am beyond grateful
City of Hope patient
ART suppresses HIV from replicating in the body and allows those with it to live a normal and healthy life.
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After the transplant five years ago, which followed chemotherapy, the City of Hope patient stopped taking ART in March 2021.
He has now been in remission from both HIV and leukaemia for more than two years.
Speaking last year, he said: “When I was diagnosed with HIV in 1988, like many others, I thought it was a death sentence.
"I never thought I would live to see the day that I no longer have HIV. I am beyond grateful."