First Person Cured Of HIV Timothy Brown Dies Of Cancer

Timothy Ray Brown, also referred to as “the Berlin patient”, has reportedly died of cancer having made history as the first person to be cured of HIV infection in 1995.

According to a social media post by his partner, Tim Hoeffgen, Brown died at 54 on Tuesday at his home in Palm Springs, California.

Berlin’s physician, Gero Huetter, who led Brown’s historic treatment, noted that the cause of his death was the return of cancer that originally prompted the unusual bone marrow and stem cell transplants Brown received in 2007 and 2008.

He said the transplant seemed to have eliminated, for years, both his leukaemia and HIV.

“Timothy symbolized that it is possible, under special circumstances, to rid a patient of HIV – something that many scientists had doubted could be done.

“It’s a very sad situation that cancer returned and took his life, because he still seemed free of HIV,” said Huetter, who is now the medical director of a stem cell company in Dresden, Germany.

The deceased, in a recent interview with the Associated Press, noted that his first transplant in 2007 was only partly successful.

He said his HIV seemed to have gone but his leukaemia was not, as he had transplanted from the same donor in 2008 and which seemed to have worked.

However, he stated that his cancer returned last year, 2019.

“I’m still glad that I had it,” he said of his transplant. “It opened up doors that weren’t there before and inspired scientists to work harder to find a cure,” Brown said.