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<\/p>\nA Norwegian man has been effectively cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant from his brother, doctors announced on Monday.<\/p>\n
The patient\u2019s brother happened to carry a rare, virus-blocking genetic mutation.<\/p>\n
The man (63), dubbed the \u2018Oslo patient\u2019, is the latest in around 10 people worldwide who have gone into long-term remission from HIV after receiving a transplant to treat unrelated blood cancer.<\/p>\n
The high-risk procedure normally requires a donor to have a specific mutation of their CCR5 gene, which blocks HIV from entering the body\u2019s cells.
Only around 1% of people in northern Europe have the necessary mutation.<\/p>\n
The Oslo patient, who had been living with HIV since 2006, was diagnosed with a fatal blood cancer called myelodysplastic syndrome in 2017.<\/p>\n
His doctors searched for a donor who would help treat both. When they couldn\u2019t find one, they chose the man\u2019s elder brother.<\/p>\n
However, on the day of the transplant in 2020, the doctors were stunned to discover that the brother carried the CCR5 mutation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had no idea . . . That was amazing,\u201d doctor Anders Myhre of the Oslo University Hospital has told AFP.<\/p>\n
The patient says \u201cit was like winning the lottery twice\u201d, adds Myhre, who was also the lead author of a study describing the case in Nature Microbiology.<\/p>\n
Two years after the transplant, the patient stopped taking the antiretroviral drugs which had been reducing the level of HIV in his body.<\/p>\n
The researchers found no trace of the virus in samples of the man\u2019s blood, gut or bone marrow.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor all practical purposes, we are quite certain that he is cured,\u201d Myhre says.<\/p>\n
Now the Oslo patient, whose name was not revealed, is \u201chaving a great time\u201d and has more energy than he knows what to do with, Myhre says.<\/p>\n
The painful and potentially dangerous transplant procedure is for people who have both HIV and deadly blood cancer, so is not a feasible option for the millions of people living with the virus across the world.<\/p>\n
However, researchers believe studying these rare cases would reveal more about how HIV works in the hope of finding a cure for all patients.<\/p>\n
The Oslo patient is the first person to receive a transplant from a family member.<\/p>\n
The patient\u2019s immune system had been \u201ccompletely replaced\u201d by the donor\u2019s, study co-author Marius Troseid of the University of Oslo says.<\/p>\n
It was the first time this had been observed in a cured patient\u2019s bone marrow and gut, he has told AFP.<\/p>\n
Even before the researchers found out the brother had a CCR5 mutation, they had some hope that the Oslo patient\u2019s HIV could be cured.<\/p>\n
That is because in 2024 it was revealed that the so-called \u2018next Berlin patient\u2019 entered long-term remission despite receiving a transplant that did not have two copies of the mutated gene.<\/p>\n
The original Berlin patient, Timothy Ray Brown, was the first person declared cured of HIV in 2008.<\/p>\n
Patients in London, New York, Geneva, Duesseldorf and elsewhere followed.<\/p>\n
Given the Oslo patient\u2019s robust health, Troseid has suggested his nickname was no longer suitable.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Oslo patient is perhaps no longer a patient. At least he doesn\u2019t feel like it,\u201d Troseid says.<\/p>\n
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