A man in London has become the second person cured of HIV in history.
Adam Castillejo, 40, was declared free of the virus a year ago and remains free of the virus 30 months after having stopped anti-retroviral therapy, according to the Independent.
Adam Castillejo on Ravindra Gupta: “He has championed me and empowered me to become an ambassador of hope to millions of people living with HIV around the world” #TIME100 https://t.co/jWGv4UwXns
— TIME (@TIME) September 23, 2020
A stem-cell treatment Castillejo underwent in an effort to treat his cancer cured his HIV, according to medical journal The Lancet. The stem cells he received as a part of his treatment have halted the ability of the virus to replicate, doctors said.
University of Cambridge professor and lead researcher Ravindra Kumar Gupta told BBC News, “This represents HIV cure with almost certainty. We have now had two and a half years with anti-retroviral-free remission. Our findings show that the success of stem-cell transplantation as a cure for HIV, first reported nine years ago in the Berlin patient, can be replicated.”
Castillejo is the second man to be cured of HIV. The first was Timothy Brown, initially known as the “Berlin patient” in 2011. Castillejo is now known in the medical community as the “London patient,” according to The Lancet. (RELATED: Nearly 900 Children Under 12 Test Positive For HIV In Pakistani City: NYT)
Catillejo told the New York Times, “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.’ No, it just happened. I was in the right place, probably at the right time, when it happened.”