Moscow - The second person in history to have been cured of HIV, the so-called London patient, remains free from symptoms one year after doctors announced that the individual was cleared of the virus, medical researchers stated in an article published in The Lancet HIV journal on Tuesday.
In 2019, medical professionals announced that the “London patient” may have been potentially cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant to treat a form of blood cancer, following Timothy Brown who underwent a similar procedure more than a decade ago.
Researchers confirmed on Tuesday that one year later, the patient remained in remission and had displayed no symptoms, adding that the individual had stopped taking antiretroviral drugs 30 months ago.
“The London patient has been in HIV-1 remission for 30 months with no detectable replication-competent virus in blood, CSF, intestinal tissue, or lymphoid tissue,” researchers wrote in the journal article.
Later in the day, the “London patient” was found to be a 40-year-old male called Adam Castillejo, who revealed his identity in an interview with the New York Times newspaper.
Castillejo said in the interview that he hoped to become an “ambassador of hope” for those affected by the illness. He stated that he was diagnosed with HIV in 2003, and was later found to have Stage 4 lymphoma in 2011.