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Timothy Ray Brown, the American once known as “the Berlin patient” who in 2008 became the first person to be cured of HIV, has a terminal cancer disease, according to his partner.
“Timothy is not dying of HIV, just to be clear,” his partner Tim Hoeffgen told activist and writer Mark King, who posted a blog post on the subject Tuesday.
“No HIV has been found in his bloodstream since he was cured. That is gone. This is from leukemia. God, I hate cancer,” Hoeffgen added.
King told AFP that he had reached out to the couple by phone last Saturday. Brown, 54, is receiving hospice care at his home in Palm Springs, California.
“I’m going to keep fighting until I can’t fight anymore,” Brown told King.
Brown made medical history and became the personification of hope for the tens of millions of people living with the virus that causes AIDS when it was cured more than a decade ago.
He was studying in Berlin in 1995 when he found out that he had been infected. Then, in 2006, he was diagnosed with leukemia or cancer that affects the blood and bone marrow.
To treat his leukemia, his doctor at the Free University of Berlin used a stem cell transplant from a donor who had a rare genetic mutation that gave him natural resistance to HIV, in the hope that it could end both diseases.
It took two painful and dangerous procedures, but it was a success: In 2008, Brown was declared free of both ailments and was initially dubbed “the Berlin Patient” at a medical conference to preserve his anonymity.
Two years later, he decided to break his silence and became a public figure, giving speeches and interviews and starting his own foundation.
“I am living proof that there can be a cure for AIDS,” he told AFP in 2012. “It is very wonderful to be cured of HIV.”
Last year, it was announced that the second person had been cured with the same method. Initially called “the London patient”, he later became public, identifying himself as Adam Castillejo.
ico / ia / mdl
