Patient cured of HIV reveals his identity

The so-called London patient — the second person to be declared fully cured of the virus that causes HIV and AIDS — revealed his identity Monday.

In an interview with The New York Times, 40-year-old Adam “LP” Castillejo revealed himself to have been the patient declared virus-free by doctors last March after receiving a bone marrow transplant from a donor whose cells contained a mutation that inhibits HIV.

The treatment, which Castillejo explained that he underwent as part of a battle against lymphoma, is not reportedly considered feasible as a widespread cure for HIV. Still, the successful treatment is considered a milestone for researchers who worried that a case 12 years earlier involving the first-ever patient to be cured of HIV was a fluke.

“This is a unique position to be in, a unique and very humbling position,” Castillejo told the Times. “I want to be an ambassador of hope.”

“I don’t want people to think, ‘Oh, you’ve been chosen,’ ” he added. “No, it just happened. I was in the right place, probably at the right time, when it happened.”

Castillejo explained to the Times that he was first diagnosed with the virus behind HIV and AIDS in 2003, at which point he considered it a possible death sentence.

“I do recall when the person told me and the panic set in,” he added. “It was a very terrifying and traumatic experience to go through.”

He would later be diagnosed with lymphoma in 2011, and would undergo years of chemotherapy treatments.

President Trump mentioned the HIV/AIDS epidemic during his State of the Union speech last year, at the time calling for Congress to commit funding to developing a cure for the virus and eradicating it within 10 years.

“My budget will ask Democrats and Republicans to make the needed commitment to eliminate the HIV epidemic in the United States within 10 years,” Trump said at the time. “Together, we will defeat AIDS in America.”