HIV/AIDS Cure News: Only Case of Now Completely HIV-Free Patient Hopes Others Can Be Cured, Too
Timothy Ray Brown, the only known person who have been cured from HIV, has said that he hopes that those others suffering from the same predicament he once had can be cured too.
Brown, otherwise known as the "Berlin Patient" as his HIV was cured in the said German capital, has recently recalled the process he went through until he was finally cured of the dreaded disease. While he has already stopped taking antiretroviral medications for the past 10 years, Brown said that he wishes a cure will be discovered soon as he doesn't want to be the only person cured of HIV/AIDS.
"I don't want to be the only one cured of HIV' it is a very lonely place... nobody wants to go through what I went through' when I had a 50% (chance) of not surviving the bone-marrow transplants but I am cured of leukaemia and HIV," Brown said in a speaking engagement at the University of Cape Town.
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It was in 1995 when Brown was discovered to have HIV and started taking antiretrovirals. However, between 2007 and 2008, he had to stop taking his HIV medication as he didn't want them to interfere with the treatment for his other disease, leukemia, which was being treated by stem cell transplants from a donor who had rare HIV-resistant blood cells.
Within the first three months since Brown received his first bone marrow transplant, the HIV viral load in his body significantly increased and eventually disappeared, just like how Dr. Gero Hutter expected when he selected the donor for his bone marrow transplant. From then on, Brown noticed that he was starting to build muscles again and his immunity against HIV was going strong. However, as his leukemia recurred, he had to undergo a second bone-marrow transplant in 2008.
Brown's recovery from his second transplant, though, did not come easy as it resulted in the temporary impairment of his sight that prevented him from walking and driving. According to Brown, the doctors thought he may have leukemia in his brain. However, after administering a biopsy on him, it was discovered that he neither had leukemia norThe doctors even did a brain biopsy on me. They said they were looking for the leukemia but of course they were looking for HIV because the brain is one of the places where HIV hides," Brown said as he spoke before the students at the University of Cape Town.
While already HIV and leukemia-free, Brown is not without health issues. Because of his brain biopsy, a bubble has formed in his brain that still causes him balance problems to this date despite having undergone a brain rehabilitation.
Medical experts have yet to unravel the mystery behind Brown's complete healing from HIV.
