London patient

12 years after the Berlin patient was cleared of HIV, doctors replicate the results on a London patient, announcing in March 2019 that he had been off treatment and HIV-free for 18 months. Both patients received a bone marrow transplant as treatment for leukaemia. Their donors had a rare genetic mutation that made them resistant to HIV infection.

While this case offers an important ‘proof of concept’, showing that the Berlin patient was not a unique case, the procedure is not a scalable cure. Bone marrow transplants are an invasive procedure with significant risks attached, alternatively antiretroviral treatment already offers a safe and effective way of suppressing HIV.