The patient is reported to be free of HIV, but scientists warn

A 35-year-old man in Brazil may first experience long-term remissions from HIV after being treated only with a cocktail of specially designed antiviral drugs, the researchers say.

Only two people Confirm HIV cure So far, after dangerous treatment, including bone marrow transplants for cancer.

An unidentified Brazilian patient has not shown signs of prolonged HIV infection in blood tests that detect the virus, according to investigators at the well-known research institute Federal University of Sao Paulo. He also seems to have no detectable antibody to the virus.

“It’s still an isolated case, but this may represent the first long-term remission of HIV without a bone marrow transplant,” scientists said. They presented the results at AIDS 2020, an annual medical conference virtually held this week for a coronavirus pandemic.

However, outside experts were skeptical of the report.

Dr. Steve Dicks, an HIV researcher at the University of California, San Francisco, said the lack of antibodies to HIV was the most interesting thing about the case.

“There’s a lot of talk about this part, a lot of controversy. Everyone will be skeptical,” he said. “Are you skeptical? Of course. Interested? Of course.”

It’s too early to say if a Brazilian patient is truly virus-free until an independent laboratory confirms the test results, Dr. Diks said. He added that even if they did, it was unclear whether his condition was the result of a combination of treatments he received.

One in 20 people who start conventional antiretroviral therapy shortly after infection suppress the virus to undetectable levels.

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The patient was diagnosed with HIV in October 2012 and started taking antiretroviral drugs two months later. In 2016, he was one in five in a clinical trial, who received three antiretroviral drugs for 48 weeks in addition to standard cocktail therapy.

Two of the drugs, maraviroc and nicotinamide, are believed to seduce HIV from hidden places in the body, and other drugs can kill the virus. HIV lurks in many so-called reservoirs, and previous studies have suggested that strategies for eradicating the body of the virus should include ways to clear the virus. Nicotinamide may also boost the immune system, said Dr. Ricardo Diaz, a member of the research team.

After the trial was completed, patients returned to standard antiretroviral therapy. According to the researchers, he stopped taking all antiretroviral drugs in March 2019. Since then, his blood was tested every 3 weeks and showed no signs of infection.

“These are exciting findings, but they are very preliminary,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, a UCSF HIV expert and one of the organizers of the conference.

Nicotinamide has been used in many other studies without these results, she said. “No drug has ever been effective in terms of long-term remission,” she said. “I don’t even know if this worked. I don’t think I can achieve remission this way because I’m a single patient.”

Brazilian scientists have offered to send samples to other labs for confirmation testing. Researchers should repeat negative antibody tests, and they plan to do so, Dr. Diks said.

Researchers must also test patients’ blood for antiretroviral drugs, he added: “Participants increase the likelihood that they will continue to receive antiretroviral drugs without notifying the research team. This is not unprecedented.”

Brazilians received antiretroviral drugs through the public health system and the deal is registered, Dr Diaz said at a news conference on Tuesday.

“There is no black market because we don’t need this,” he said. “And there was no registration that this patient got any drug from the public system.”

Still, he said the team would check the patient’s blood for use of antiviral drugs unknown to the researchers.