First man ‘functionally cured’ of HIV

Fri Jun 3, 5:40 pm ET
First man ‘functionally cured’ of HIV
By Liz Goodwin liz Goodwin – Fri Jun 3, 5:40 pm ET
Since HIV was discovered 30 years ago this week, 30 million people have died
from the disease, and it continues to spread at the rate of 7,000 people per day
globally, the UN says.

There's not much good news when it comes to this devastating virus. But that is
perhaps why the story of the man scientists call the "Berlin patient" is so
remarkable and has generated so much excitement among the HIV advocacy
community.

Timothy Ray Brown suffered from both leukemia and HIV when he received a bone
marrow stem cell transplant in Berlin, Germany in 2007. The transplant came from
a man who was immune to HIV, which scientists say about 1 percent of Caucasians
are. (According to San Francisco's CBS affiliate, the trait may be passed down
from ancestors who became immune to the plague centuries ago. This Wired story
says it was more likely passed down from people who became immune to a
smallpox-like disease.)

What happened next has stunned the dozens of scientists who are closely
monitoring Brown: His HIV went away.

"He has no replicating virus and he isn't taking any medication. And he will now
probably never have any problems with HIV," his doctor Gero Huetter told
Reuters. Brown now lives in the Bay Area, and suffers from some mild
neurological difficulties after the operation. "It makes me very happy," he says
of the incredible cure.

The development of anti-retroviral drugs in the 1990s was the first sign of hope
in the epidemic, transforming the disease from a sudden killer to a more
manageable illness that could be lived with for decades. But still, the
miraculous cocktail of drugs is expensive, costing $13 billion a year in
developing countries alone, according to Reuters. That figure is expected to
triple in 20 years--raising the worry that more sick people will not be able to
afford treatment.

Although Brown's story is remarkable, scientists were quick to point out that
bone marrow transplants can be fatal, and there's no way Brown's treatment could
be applied to the 33.3 million people around the world living with HIV. The
discovery does encourage "cure research," according to Dr. Jay Levy, who
co-discovered HIV thirty years ago, something that many people did not even
think was possible years ago.

You can watch Brown talk about his cure in this CBS video report.
(Brown: Eric Risberg/AP)
This article has been updated to include more context about why some people are
immune to HIV.

Lessons from HIV/AIDS Advocacy

This month marks 30 years since the first case reports were published about
HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. A new report analyzes the factors that
helped patient advocates drive research into and drug development for that
disease, and tries to figure out whether there are lessons to be learned for
other disease advocates.

The paper, called "Back to Basics: HIV/AIDS Advocacy as a Model for
Catalyzing Change" and co-authored by consulting-firm HCM Strategists and
the nonprofit group FasterCures, is based on in-person and telephone
interviews with activists, scientists, government officials and policy
makers involved with the HIV/AIDS advocacy movement. It credits patient
advocates with helping to implement regulatory changes that speed up access
to investigatory drugs and with ushering in an era where patients are taken
seriously and their views represented on governmental and scientific
committees.

While advocates now have a level of access and face time with policy makers
and officials that took years for HIV/AIDS activists to win, the report
argues that this doesn't mean advocates "have their attention and, in some
instances, it only means that the decision makers can 'check the box' about
consulting with the community without having really listened.'' In the past
decades, patient-driven foundations have raised huge amounts of money to
help fund research and have hired scientists to staff their organizations.

But it's still crucial to have an actual patient sitting at the table along
with the scientists, drug company executives, and policy makers, the report
says. Patients shouldn't simply "defer to the organizations and scientists
representing their interests."

There are some specific steps taken by yesterday's HIV/AIDS advocates that
could help today's advocates be more effective. Among them: focusing on
specific problems that hold back research or drug development and proposing
solutions; creating a sense of community among advocates so that different
groups are driving towards a common goal; training patient advocates to
understand the scientific and policy issues in their disease and figuring
out the key issue limiting research progress and then developing an approach
to fix it.

SOUTH AFRICA: Top five recent successes in HIV

Making progress
DURBAN, 8 June 2011 (PlusNews) - South Africa's
HIV/AIDS programme has come a long way from the dark days of denialism
and deadly treatment delays. Francois Venter, chairman of the
country's bi-annual HIV conference, SA AIDS 2011, gave IRIN/PlusNews
five reasons to be happy about the countrys progress:

1. Testing - About 12 million people in South Africa have been tested
for HIV in the past year, representing just under a quarter of the
total population.

2. Antiretroviral prices - ARV drug costs have been halved in the past
six months, because of the countrys recently negotiated ARV tender.
HIV is now one of the cheapest chronic conditions to treat in the
South African public health system.

3. Treatment - Nearly 1.4 million South Africans are on ARVs - still
less than half of those in need. But of the 1.4 million on treatment,
400,000 were initiated in the past year. The programme hopes to have
2.3 million on treatment by the end of 2012, according to Venter, who
is also deputy executive director of the Wits Institute for Sexual &
Reproductive Health, HIV and Related Diseases. Over 5 million South
Africans are living with HIV.

At present, 1,668 public health facilities provide ARVs in South Africa.

4. Tuberculosis - South Africa has finally begun to tackle TB.
Although about 70 percent of TB patients are co-infected with HIV, TB
has been the orphan of the health world for decades, Venter told
IRIN/PlusNews.

[TB] has been mismanaged and hasnt been given the resources it
deserves. For the first time, its being regarded as the emergency it
actually is, he said. For the first time, were seeing the drugs and
the diagnostics; we need to now start making sure that the health
system is one that allows us to start to tackle it.

5. The re-engineering of the primary healthcare system - Venter called
this initiative one of the most profound changes planned in the past
20 years. Expected to be community-driven, the restructuring of local
health districts is set to increase access to HIV care and treatment.