"The Berlin Patient"; a possible cure for HIV arround the corner.

About 34 million people are infected with HIV; 25 million have died from the disease was discovered, and medicine has not being capable to find a definite cure… or at least it seemed.

Timothy Ray Brown—as known as The Berlin Patient or the man who once had HIV—is the first case of someone who got cured from that disease and this is his story.

In 1995, he was tested positive for HIV. Then, for eleven years he lived struggling with the disease, taking the usual lifetime pills that allowed him to live an almost normal life. In 2006, he was also diagnosed with myeloid leukemia and a marrow bone transplant seemed to be the only option to keep him from death.

After the transplant, there was not be any leukemia cells, but more important than that, the HIV virus had also disappeared. How was that possible?

Dr. Gero Huetter, headmaster of the oncology department at University Hospital of Berlin explained that some people (less than the 1% of worldwide population) have natural immunity against HIV virus. Every cell has a protein called CCR5, which allows the virus to attach to the T-cell, and then infects it. People without that protein are immune, and the marrow bone which Brown was transplanted had that mutation, so he got cured!

Up to now, there is neither leukemia nor HIV trace in his organism, which made me wonder:  are we in front of a definite cure? Do pharmaceutical companies willing to investigate a final cure, considering the highest profits they earn every year selling drugs to keep infected people alive? Will this cure be available for everybody or just for ones who can pay for it?

(See the full articles on http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/48338421/ns/today-today_health/t/two-more-men-hiv-now-virus-free-cure/#.UKEvQ4dVmC2 and http://timothyrbrown.com/)