His HIV Was Cured. That Makes Him No. 7

"A healthy person has many wishes, a sick person only one." The 60-year-old German patient who offered that line in a statement appears to have had his wish come true. Scientists say the unnamed man is thought to be the seventh in the world to have been cured of HIV. Like those who came before him, the cure was the result of a stem cell transplant he received in October 2015 as part of his treatment for acute myeloid leukemia. Doctors say he shows no sign of the virus in his body despite ceasing all antiretroviral drugs in September 2018. More:

• Standout quote: "The longer we see these HIV remissions without any HIV therapy, the more confidence we can get that we're probably seeing a case where we really have eradicated all competent HIV," says Dr. Christian Gaebler, who was to present the case at the 25th International AIDS Conference in Munich on Wednesday.
• Caveat: The stem cell transplant responsible for his HIV remission is a risky procedure that can be fatal and costs hundreds of thousands of dollars; as such, it doesn't have the potential to be a widely available option to the 40 million people currently living with HIV, reports AFP.
• Explainer: A stem cell transplant has been able to provide a cure in part because the patient's immune system is obliterated by chemo or radiation and replaced by the donor's immune system—and in five of the seven cases, doctors specifically used donors who had a rare genetic defect.
• About that defect: HIV typically attaches to the protein CCR5 and then infects cells. Without CCR5, immune cells resist HIV, and the rare genetic defect the donors had prevents CCR5 from being produced.
• Something different here: Five of the seven patients got stem cells from donors who had two copies of the mutated CCR5 gene (one from each parent). The German patient received stem cells from a donor who had only one copy.

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