Toronto man poised to become 1st Canadian cured of HIV | Hanomansing Tonight

Added: 2026-05-06

[00:00:00]A 62-year-old man is poised to be Canada's first person to be cured of HIV. To date, just 10 patients worldwide are considered cured following similar procedures. This case was led by Dr. Sharon Walmsley, who directs the immunodeficiency clinic at the University Health Network. And Dr. Walmsley is joining us now from Toronto to discuss this breakthrough.

[00:00:22]Um Dr. Walmsley, thank you for your time. And first, let me just ask you, what does it actually mean to be cured of HIV?

[00:00:29]Uh what that means is that HIV has been completely eliminated from one's body.

[00:00:36]Wow. And so, and how close is this patient to to reaching that status?

[00:00:41]Well, what's happened here is that this patient had leukemia, and he required a bone marrow transplant in order to treat his leukemia.

[00:00:50]And so, when you do that, you completely eradicate that individual's immune system with chemotherapy and radiation therapy, and then you replace it with a new bone marrow. And in this particular circumstance, we chose a bone marrow from an individual who had a mutation that would not allow the virus inside the cells. And so, once he had this new immune system, the HIV virus in his body disappeared.

[00:01:17]And did you going into this, did you anticipate that outcome?

[00:01:22]Well, we had heard of the other 10 cases that have been presented in the literature. And when this patient required a bone marrow, we went searching through the international databases to see if we could find one that only not only would match him so that it would take appropriately to his body, but also would have this mutation that gave us the possibility of removing his HIV at the same time.

[00:01:48]Yes. If your patient remains in remission, he's going to be He joins a very small group of people in the world who are currently considered to be cured of HIV.

[00:01:59]How hopeful are you that that will happen? And then to what end do you see I mean, how many more cases like this need to happen before this becomes potentially something that others look to as a possible cure?

[00:02:15]Well, we're pretty certain that he's going to be there, but we do need a little bit more time cuz we can't be absolutely sure there's not a few virus particles that are hiding out in his body that may emerge. But we clearly cannot offer this treatment for all people living with HIV. A bone marrow transplant is a pretty serious procedure that holds a significant mortality with it, and people can get infections when the immune system is down.

[00:02:41]So, we cannot offer this to anybody unless they need a bone marrow [snorts] for some other reason.

[00:02:46]However, what this case does, it provides our scientists with some observations that they can use to help develop other methods by which we might eradicate the virus from the body and provide a cure through some other means.

[00:03:02]So, you've been treating HIV patients for decades. And when this story came up in our news meeting today, I was reminded of, you know, studying this in in in high school when HIV AIDS was, you know, the scariest thing in every newspaper and on and all over the screens. How long have you been doing this? Did you ever think that you would get to this point?

[00:03:26]Uh I've been doing this for close to 40 years now, and saw some of the first cases when I was a junior doctor. And you're right, it was terrible at the time. People were dying, we didn't have any treatment. Uh most people were told they had 6 months to live.

[00:03:43]And then, over the years, we have developed effective antiretroviral therapy, which have allowed people to live well with their virus under control. And then, this is just the next step on the spectrum to be able to potentially cure people from their HIV.

[00:04:00]Dr. Sharon Walmsley, thank you very much for your time.

[00:04:04]Good evening.