By Jordi Font Comas d'Argemir
Adam Castillejo, known worldwide as "the London patient", is a unique case, known today as a cure for AIDS, prior to the one in Düsseldorf. He wants to give "a message of hope" to science after having survived "two death sentences" from AIDS and leukemia.
This 42-year-old British man of Venezuelan origin celebrated in an interview with EFE that the Düsseldorf patient had formally joined the list of extraordinary cases of HIV cure that was inaugurated in 2011 by the Berlin patient, Timothy Ray Brown, who later died of cancer in 2020.
That same year, this London patient came to light, the second in the world to present himself with his first and last name, to show "the human side" of scientific research.
"I am living proof of the 40 years of development of science against HIV and I could not remain incognito, but had to come out to give a message of hope to researchers and my community, because, although I no longer have HIV, I will always be part of the HIV community, as a survivor," explained Adam Castillejo.
A 20-YEAR ODYSSEY
In 2003, Castillejo was diagnosed with HIV, when antiretroviral treatment was not as advanced as it is today, and in 2012 came a second blow that, paradoxically, was the beginning of a solution to AIDS, although fraught with complications.
"In 2012 I was diagnosed with stage 4 Hodgkin's lymphoma, which was very aggressive, and at that time it was another death sentence after the first one in 2003 due to HIV, although this time it was different because I could tell people I had cancer and feel supported; with HIV I couldn't because people tend to discriminate and stigmatize," said the patient from London.
The initial treatment did not work adequately and in 2015 the doctors gave him the option of a bone marrow transplant from a donor who also had a rare mutation called CCR5 Delta32, which prevents the virus from entering target cells, which could cure him of both diseases.
The treatment worked and Castillejo, 42, is now in remission from cancer and HIV, but at a very high cost.
"My life is like the one people lived with the coronavirus, with isolation and masks for a long time, with also high risks of infections, complications and the possibility of secondary cancer," he stressed.
The similar cases of patients in Berlin, London and Düsseldorf are helping scientists work on large-scale methods of curing AIDS using the CCR5 Delta32 mutation other than bone marrow transplants - a high-risk procedure reserved only for certain blood cancer patients - but, pending results, prevention remains the best method.
"There is a culture of thinking that AIDS is over, but that is not the case. It is alive and well in every corner of the planet," Castillejo stressed, referring to a disease that has left 40 million dead in 40 years and continues to kill, directly or indirectly, some 700,000 people worldwide each year.
Fortunately, "in Europe there are medicines and a little more education, but to the youth - says Castillejo - I say 'take care of yourselves, health is essential and without health you have nothing'."
And if the patient does contract the virus, the important thing is that the disease does not define the patient's life and that the stigmas that still persist are broken.
"We still think that it is a homosexual disease from the 80s and that is not the case. It is important that people understand that it should not have those connotations and that it is a disease like any other, like diabetes or cancer," concluded the London patient. EFE