Two new cases, one from America and one from Spain, give scientists new hope for finding a broad-based cure for the virus that causes AIDS.
The 66-year-old California man, now called the “City of Hope” patient for the San Diego facility in which he was treated, was given a stem cell transplant for leukemia.
In addition to being the oldest patient to be cured of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), he is also the patient who had HIV the longest, having contracted it in 1988.
The transplant came from the stem cells of a volunteer with a genetic mutation that makes people resistant to most strains of HIV.