Control of HIV despite the Discontinuation of Antiretroviral Therapy

To the Editor: Eradication of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a difficult goal to achieve, because a reservoir of replication-competent HIV is established in resting CD4 T lymphocytes soon after infection and persists after years of highly active antiretroviral treatment.1 A more realistic alternative to lifelong cumbersome, toxic, and expensive treatments is to control HIV, as occurs in patients with long-term nonprogression of the disease. A patient, who has become known as “the Berlin patient,” was treated soon after acute HIV infection, before complete seroconversion on Western blotting, with a combination of hydroxyurea (400 mg three times daily),2 didanosine . . .