A total of 744 HIV/AIDs cases have been reported in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Timothy Ray Brown, 45, had tested positive for HIV, the virus symptomatic of AIDs , back in 1995. However, he has managed to eliminate the virus from his body with what doctors describe as a “functional cure”.
Dubbed the “Berlin patient”, Brown received a stem cell transplant in 2007 when he was suffering from leukemia and HIV, both. The transplant carried an immunity gene which cured Brown of his disease.
“I quit taking my HIV medication the day that I got the transplant and haven’t had to take any since,” said Brown in a CBS report.
However, doctors are cautious not to take Brown’s story as a generic cure for AIDs. A lot of questions were still unanswered in his case to determine the exact cause of ‘cure’.
Many research organisations have been working for decades in a bid to find a cure to HIV, and thereby AIDs.
The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation donated $10 billion last year to fund a 10 year research program looking for a cure to AIDS.
Almost 100,000 people in Pakistan are affected by the disease with Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa the worst affected. 744 cases of HIV/AIDs were reported from the north western Pakistani province last year.