'Geneva Patient' Achieves Long-Term HIV Remission

Hopes for a possible cure in the future have been boosted by the almost two-year-long HIV remission of a European man.

Known as the "Geneva patient," the man underwent a stem cell transplant utilized to treat blood cancer. If more time goes by with no symptoms of a living virus, he might join the few people who are either categorically or potentially HIV-cured, according to NBC News.

When they had stem cell transplants to treat blood malignancies like leukemia or lymphoma, all six individuals who achieved HIV remission carried the virus. The most recent instance, however, is remarkable because it includes a person whose donor did not have the uncommon genetic mutation that causes HIV resistance in the immune cells that the virus targets.

The International AIDS Society Conference on HIV Science in Brisbane, Australia, will feature this ground-breaking case. Presentations on post-treatment management of HIV in baby boys, the effect of circumcision on gay men's HIV risk, and the connection between HIV and mpox (formerly known as monkeypox) will also be made during the conference, a significant biannual meeting of scientists.

A Medical Breakthrough

Although the most recent development is encouraging, it is crucial to remember that, given the significant toxicity of such an approach, it is still unethical for HIV patients who are unqualified to receive stem cell transplants because of cancer to undergo such treatment expecting to cure the infection. According to scientists, it will probably take decades to produce a broadly applicable HIV cure.

The latest viral remission case was hailed as "great news" by Dr. Sharon Lewin, president of the IAS and head of the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity situated in Melbourne, Australia. She also stressed the importance of such case reports in pushing the search for a treatment.

Before the current development, five persons had been deemed "cured" of HIV, including patients from Berlin, London, Duesseldorf, New York, and City of Hope, California. These individuals got bone marrow transplants from donors with a CCR5 gene mutation that prevents HIV from entering cells.

Geneva University Hospitals doctors have identified no HIV in the patient 20 months after ceasing antiretroviral medication. Despite the uncertainty, researchers consider the man's HIV has been in long-term remission.

Further Monitoring Needed

The Geneva patient, a white man who preferred anonymity, was diagnosed with HIV in 1990. He had been taking antiretrovirals until November 2021, when his medical professionals urged him to stop after a bone marrow transplant.

The Boston patients were transplanted with normal or "wild type" stem cells. After ceasing antiretroviral therapy in each individual, the HIV infection reappeared a few months later.

When discussing the case of the Geneva patient in Brisbane, Asier Saez-Cirion, a researcher from France's Pasteur Institute, remarked that the likelihood of the virus being undetected in the future considerably improves if there is no indication after 12 months, Science Alert reported.

Further examinations are ongoing to determine the causes of the Geneva patient's HIV-free status. However, it's possible that the transplant removed all infected cells without the need for the CCR5 mutation or that the immunosuppressive medication played a role.