A human cell (in blue) infected with the AIDS virus (in yellow).

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AP / SIPA

Timothy Ray Brown, the American originally known as the "Berlin patient" and who in 2008 became the first man to recover from HIV, is terminally ill with cancer, his companion announced.

"Timothy is not dying of HIV, let's be clear," Tim Hoeffgen told activist and author Mark King.

The latter posted a blog post on Tuesday, September 22, and wrote that the couple wanted to go through him to announce the news.

“HIV has not been detected in his blood since he was cured.

Let's go.

There is leukemia.

My God, I hate cancer, ”explained Timothy Ray Brown's companion.

And to add: "He is someone you can not help but love, he is so nice.

Cancer treatments have been very harsh.

Sometimes I wonder if they are not worse than the disease.

"

Timothy Ray Brown, first man to be cured of HIV infection, now has terminal cancer https://t.co/6jgl4x41xH pic.twitter.com/BeCUZqhluc

- FOX 5 DC (@ fox5dc) September 25, 2020

"I will continue to fight"

Timothy Ray Brown, 54, is in hospice care at his home in Palm Springs, California.

“I will keep fighting until I can't fight anymore,” he told Mark King.

The man has written a page in the medical history of HIV.

In 1995 he was living in Berlin when he learned he had been infected with the virus.

In 2006, he was diagnosed with leukemia.

To cure him of leukemia, his doctor at the 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 hopes that the transplant cures both diseases.

It took two transplants, heavy and dangerous operations, but the bet succeeded: in 2008, Timothy Ray Brown became cured of both diseases.

The initial announcement had preserved his anonymity as "patient from Berlin".

Cured of AIDS

In 2010, he agreed to release his name publicly, and has since become a public figure, speaking in interviews and conferences.

"I am living proof that there can be a cure for AIDS," he declared in 2012. Since then, only one other remission has been announced, in March 2019, thanks to the same method, in the "patient of London ”, who also revealed his identity later, Adam Castillejo, and is now considered cured.

Due to its burden and the risks, the stem cell transplant method is not considered a generalizable treatment route, especially today since antiretroviral treatments allow people to live a normal life with HIV. .

"We must weigh the 10% mortality rate for a stem cell transplant and the risk of death if we do nothing," explained last March the virologist Ravindra Gupta, of the University of Cambridge, who has followed the patient from London.

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