Since the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was discovered, only one person has been known to be fully cured of the disease. Timothy Ray Brown said that he hopes those people who also have HIV will be cured and that a permanent effective treatment can be found.
In a Times Live article, Brown, known as the "Berlin Patient," narrated the how his disease was finally eliminated. While he himself has been HIV-free for the past 10 years, he said that he hopes a cure will be found soon. "I don't want to be the only one cured of HIV, it is a very lonely place," Brown said.
He added, "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!"
In 1995, the 51-year-old patient was diagnosed with HIV and started taking antiretrovirals. However, after getting leukaemia years later, Brown had to stop using the HIV drugs in 2007 since he did not want the drugs to interfere with the donor cells he needed for his leukaemia treatment. Luckily, the donor for his stem cell transplant had rare HIV-resistant blood cells.
After the transplant, Brown noticed changes in his condition. As his doctor predicted, his HIV surfaced with intensity and then started to dissipate in the first three months. He then suspected that he was getting better when noticed that he was building muscle again. Things went well until his leukemia recurred, prompting a second transplant in 2008.
Later on, when Brown developed eye complications, a brain biopsy was done to see if he had leukemia there. But his doctors found that he was not only cleared from leukaemia, but also HIV-AIDS. Brown said, "Nobel scientist Dr. David Baltimore said: 'In medical science nothing is impossible.'"
According to Huffington Post, over a million people in the United States are currently living with HIV, and about 15 percent of them are not aware that they have it. Worse, an average of 20 deaths is reported each day due to the disease.
Brown's complete healing is truly an inspiration for those who are infected with HIV/AIDS. Unfortunately, the treatment he underwent is too risky to try on other HIV patients. But then, his case only proves that a cure is still possible.
