bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Reuters

Timothy Ray Brown, the first person known to have been cured of HIV when he had a unique type of bone marrow transplant, has died in California after relapsing with cancer, his partner said.
“It is with great sadness that I announce that Timothy passed away … this afternoon surrounded by myself and friends, after a 5 month battle with leukaemia,” his partner Tim Hoeffgen said in a post on Facebook.
Brown, born on March 11, 1966, became known as the “Berlin Patient” after his HIV was eradicated by treatment there in 2007.
The American’s case fascinated and inspired a generation of HIV doctors as well as patients infected with the virus that causes Aids, offering a glimmer of hope that one day a cure will be found that eventually ends the Aids pandemic.
Editing genes to cure HIV? Chinese team gets US$2m to pursue anti-AIDS tech
Adeeba Kamarulzaman, president of the International Aids Society, said he would mourn Brown “with a profoundly heavy heart”.
“We owe Timothy and his doctor, Gero Huetter, a great deal of gratitude for opening the door for scientists to explore the concept that a cure for HIV is possible,” said Kamarulzaman, who is also a professor of medicine and infectious diseases at Malaya University.
Brown was diagnosed with HIV in 1995 while living in the German capital, and in 2006 was also diagnosed with a type of blood cancer known as acute myeloid leukaemia.
While Brown remained clear of HIV for more than a decade after being treated, he had suffered a relapse of the leukaemia in the past year. His doctors said the blood cancer had spread to his spine and brain, and he had recently been in hospice care in his hometown of Palm Springs, California.


For Huetter, the German doctor caring for him in 2007, Brown’s case was a shot in the dark. The treatment involved the destruction of Brown’s immune system and the transplanting of stem cells with a gene mutation called CCR5 that resists HIV.
Only a tiny proportion of people – most of them of northern European descent – have the CCR5 mutation that makes them resistant to the Aids-causing virus.
This and other factors made the treatment Brown had expensive, complex and highly risky. Most experts say it could never become a way to cure all HIV patients, since many of them would risk death from the procedure itself.
More than 37 million people worldwide are currently infected with HIV, and the Aids pandemic has killed about 35 million people since it began in the 1980s.

Medical advances over the past three decades have led to the development of drug combinations known as antiretroviral therapies that can keep the virus in check, allowing many HIV positive people to live with the virus for years.
A second HIV patient, Adam Castillejo, who was known as “the London patient” until he revealed his identity this year, is also thought to be in remission from HIV after having a transplant in 2016 similar to the one Brown had.
“Although the cases of Timothy and Adam are not a viable large-scale strategy for a cure, they do represent a critical moment in the search for an HIV cure,” said Sharon Lewin, a professor and HIV specialist at Australia’s Doherty Institute.
She said Brown was a “a champion and advocate for keeping an HIV cure on the political and scientific agenda”, and added:
“It is the hope of the scientific community that one day we can honour his legacy with a safe, cost-effective and widely accessible strategy to achieve HIV remission and cure.”


Global drug giants double down on China amid trend to build self-reliant supply chains

Iran’s parliament speaker emerges as key figure in war after assassinations

Some tourists in Malaysia make most of Mideast flight mess as others scramble to get home

China, US end trade talks in Paris; chip self-sufficiency drive: SCMP’s 7 highlights

United States

Timothy Ray Brown, world’s first patient cured of HIV, dies of cancer

Timothy Ray Brown. Photo: AP

This handout photo obtained September 27, 2020 courtesy of Michael Louella shows Timothy Ray Brown in home hospice with his partner, Tim Hoeffgen(L) on August 8, 2020 in Palm Springs, California. - Timothy Ray Brown, the American once known as "the Berlin patient" who in 2008 became the first person to be cured of HIV, is terminally ill with cancer, according to his partner. "Timothy is not dying from HIV, just to be clear," his partner Tim Hoeffgen told the activist and writer Mark King, who published a blog post on the subject on Tuesday."HIV has not been found in his bloodstream since he was cured. That's gone. This is from the leukemia. God, I hate cancer," added Hoeffgen. (Photo by Michael LOUELLA / Michael LOUELLA / AFP) / RESTRICTED TO EDITORIAL USE - MANDATORY CREDIT "AFP PHOTO /MICHAEL LOUELLA/HANDOUT " - NO MARKETING - NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS - DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS

All traces of HIV vanish from ‘London patient’ in second such case, raising hopes of Aids cure

A vial of HIV-positive blood is displayed by a nurse in an infectious diseases hospital in Moscow, in this file photo. Photo: AFP

DCG36P Cluster of HIV virus. HIV is the human immunodeficiency virus that can lead to acquired immune deficiency syndrom, or AIDS. Photo: Alamy

Ravindra Gupta, a professor and HIV biologist, says that no trace of HIV can be found in the so-called "London patient"/ Photo: Africa Health Research Institute

US Timothy Ray Brown, also known as “The Berlin Patient”, the first man to cure AIDS, poses during the International Symposium HIV & Emerging Infectious Diseases (ISHEID) conference, on May 23, 2012 in Marseille, southern France. Timothy Ray Brown infected with HIV for more than a decade was given an experimental transplant of bone marrow with cells that contained an unusual natural variant of the CCR5 delta 32 cell-surface receptor, proved resistant to HIV, by a team around German oncologist Gero Hütter. AFP PHOTO / GERARD JULIEN

Coronavirus disruption to HIV treatment could cause 500,000 additional Aids deaths, UN and other agencies warn

A patient suffering from HIV consults their doctor at Tangerang Hospital, Jakarta, in Indonesia. The coronavirus pandemic could cause an additional half a million Aids deaths if treatment continues to be disrupted. Photo: Getty Images

UNAIDS Executive Director Winnie Byanyima answers to AFP on July 3, 2020 in Geneva during an interview ahead of the publication by the organisation of its annual report of AIDS and HIV in the world amid the COVID-19 outbreak, caused by the novel coronavirus. - Millions have died needlessly from AIDS-related causes due to lacking access to existing therapies, the UNAIDS chief said, calling for a fairer approach from the start to tackling the coronavirus pandemic. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)

FILE PHOTO: Director-General of the WHO Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, attends a news conference on the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in Geneva, Switzerland February 11, 2020. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse/File Photo

FILED - 19 January 2020, Berlin: United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a press conference after the Libya conference. Guterres called on the Israeli government to abandon plans to annex parts of the West Bank. Photo: Michael Kappeler/dpa/Pool/dpa

News

World

United States & Canada


The 54-year-old became known as the ‘Berlin Patient’ after his HIV was eradicated by treatment there in 2007
His case offered a glimmer of hope that one day a cure will be found that eventually ends the Aids pandemic



While Brown remained clear of HIV for more than a decade after being treated, he had suffered a relapse of the leukaemia in the past year.


Disease

Germany