Man who was the second person in the world to be cured of HIV reveals identity: 'I want to give others hope of recovery,' he says
Regardless of the fact that today's medicine has already advanced quite a lot in the "treatment" of HIV, there is still no preparation available on the market that could completely eliminate the virus from the body (blood). Current therapy involves the regular use of antiretroviral drugs, which can minimise the virus in the blood (down to an undetectable level where the patient does not spread the infection further), but still does not provide a complete cure. Only in two cases has HIV actually been eliminated from the body, but both men, who are now completely healthy, had cancer and needed bone marrow/stem cell transplants. This is of course not the ideal way to 'cure' HIV positive patients, but the cases of the so-called Berlin and London patients give all patients at least a little hope. This is what the London patient, Adam Castillejo, now wants to spread, and to this end he has decided to reveal his identity.
Castillejo, 40, gave a candid interview to the New York Times on Monday and also revealed that he had been living with HIV since 2003 . It was a terrifying and traumatic experience," he described. And another terrifying illness was yet to come. In 2012, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. "I'll never forget that, it was a death sentence the second time," he adds.
Although he went through hell and even considered euthanasia in Switzerland, he finally grabbed onto his last hope thanks to a friend. So he underwent a stem cell transplant from a donor with a specific mutation, making the resulting white blood cells resistant to HIV. As he waited for his doctor to call, he was actually waiting for the verdict. What was his surprise when, just when he thought he was going to die, he learned that he was probably cured of HIV too! "I was just on the bus trying to digest the information, I was so happy...and that's where my journey as a London patient began," he described. It was revealed last year that Castillejo was already in remission from HIV, but doctors were not yet fully convinced of his cure.
For Castillejo himself, watching the news that the second person in the world was already in remission from HIV was downright surreal. "I was watching television and when they were talking about the London patient and millions of people were subsequently reacting to the news and speculating about his identity, I thought - okay, they're talking about me. But it was a very strange feeling," he said, still choosing to remain anonymous at the time. According to his own words, he also struggled intensely with whether and when to make his identity public at all, given the attention that might follow. But today, now that it is clear that HIV is definitely out of his system, he has changed his mind. "I'm in a unique position, I'm very humble and I want to be an ambassador of hope," he said, adding that he realized his story also carried a message of optimism.
Catillejo has also already set up an email address and acquired a dedicated phone number and social media profiles under the "London Patient" tag. He is also in regular contact with a second man cured of HIV. And he is ready to share his story and pass on a piece of hope. "I don't want people to think I was chosen in any way, it just happened. I was in the right place at the right time," sums up Castillejo, who grew up in Caracas, Venezuela, but moved to London with his mother after his parents divorced.
But the truth is that stem cell transplantation in particular is definitely not a procedure that is appropriate for HIV patients, as it is a very invasive and risky method. However, according to the doctors, this case is above all proof that the cure of the so-called Berlin patient (whose identity is also known, he is Timothy Ray Brown) was neither a coincidence nor an anomaly. Even that is enough for a start.
