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Witness History: The Berlin Patient

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16/02/2022 GMT

The Berlin Patient

BBC World Service - Witness History, The Berlin Patient

Timothy Ray Brown was the first person in the world to be cured of HIV/AIDS.

Timothy Ray Brown was the first person in the world to be cured of HIV/AIDS. In the 1990s, he received a cutting-edge treatment that combined cancer and HIV therapy.

In the 1990s, doctors in Berlin began a cutting-edge treatment programme that led to a patient being cured of HIV/AIDS. The so-called "Berlin patient" was Timothy Ray Brown: he was suffering from leukemia as well as HIV/AIDS, and was given a bone marrow transplant from a donor with a rare genetic mutation which killed off the HIV virus. Timothy Ray Brown was a campaigner for AIDS research until his death, from leukemia, in 2020. Ashley Byrne speaks to his partner, Tim Hoeffgen. 

PHOTO: Timothy Ray Brown in 2012 (Getty Images)

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