What if All HIV Patients Were "Functionally Cured?"

HIV Community Excited First man ‘functionally cured’

 Fri Jun 3, 5:40 pm ET 
By Liz Goodwi

What if all HIV patients were "functionally cure" of HIV?   Well scientist now believes that they have a functional cure for HIV.  Liz Goodwi  Friday June 3, 2001 article in YahooNews/the Lookoutblog, shed some light on this sigh of relief.

According to UN report, “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.”  I don't know about you but to me that is a scary epidemic. 

Now there is hope and it stems from 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. 

This resulted in what scientist call the"Berlin patient," in reference to Timothy Ray Brown  a man who suffered from both leukemia and HIV before he received the transplant. See the "Berlin patient" video here. He is now referred to as being "functionally cured."

Since the transplant, "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’s story “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.” The are actually referring to him as being "functionally cured."