The London Patient: Second Patient To Be Cured Of HIV

The second person in the world to be cured of HIV has revealed his identity, almost a year after he was wiped of the AIDS-causing virus.

Adam Castillejo, 40, was known only as the ‘London patient’ when doctors revealed his success story last March after a stem cell transplant to treat his cancer.

He remained anonymous until he decided he wanted to be seen as an ‘ambassador of hope’ after struggling with his health for almost two decades.

Mr Castillejo, who was born in Venezuela, was diagnosed with blood cancer in 2012, having already lived with HIV since 2003.

His last hope of cancer survival was a bone marrow transplant from a donor with HIV-resistant genes that could wipe out his cancer and virus in one fell swoop.

The procedure in May 2016 meant Mr Castillejo, whose mental health had spiralled drastically over the years and even led him to consider ending his life, was cleared of both cancer and HIV.

The only other person to have survived the life-threatening technique, and come out of it HIV-free, was so-called ‘Berlin patient’ Timothy Ray Brown, a US man treated in Germany 12 years ago.

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Speaking with the New York Times, Mr Castillejo said: ‘This is a unique position to be in, a unique and very humbling position. I want to be an ambassador of hope.

‘I don’t want people to think, ‘Oh, you’ve been chosen,’ he said. No, it just happened. I was in the right place, probably at the right time, when it happened.’

Experts have hailed the treatment as a ‘milestone’ in the fight against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

But they urged caution when calling it a ‘cure’ at such an early stage. Mr Castillejo’s doctors dubbed it ‘remission’ and said they needed to wait more time before declaring he was HIV-free.

Now, Dr Ravindra Gupta of the University of Cambridge, Mr Castillejo’s virologist, said: ‘We think this is a cure now, because it’s been another year and we’ve done a few more tests.’

In the context of HIV infection, the term ‘cure’ means there are no virus-carrying cells left.

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) is very effective at reducing the viral load in the blood of infected individuals so that it cannot be transmitted to others – even through unprotected sex.

However, it does not completely eliminate the virus and if medication is stopped, it will begin replicating again.

Unfortunately, the Berlin and London patients’ cases do not change reality much for the 37million people living with HIV.

The treatment is unlikely to have potential on a wider scale because both Mr. Castillejo and Mr. Ray Brown were given stem cells to treat cancer, not HIV.

Stem cell and bone marrow transplants are life-threatening operations with huge risks. Dangers lie in the patient suffering a fatal reaction if substitute immune cells don’t take.