Chinese farmer cleared of HIV six years after testing positive
BEIJING, Dec. 3 (Xinhua) — A farmer in northeast China’s Jilin Province has tested HIV negative, six years after being diagnosed as HIV-positive, according to the provincial Center of Disease Control (CDC). Wen Congcheng, from Erdaogou Village in Chuanying District, Jilin city, first tested HIV positive in 2001 at the Chuanying District disease prevention and control center when it was screening blood-plasma donors.
Late in 2003, he was re-confirmed to have HIV/AIDS as a result of another test, this one by the CDC of Jilin province, which tested the same blood sample originally analyzed by the Chuanying District CDC.
The provincial CDC is the only authority which can issue final confirmation of an HIV-positive result. It is unclear why it took more than two years for Wen to receive final confirmation.
However, in July this year, Wen received a negative test result at the No. 1 Clinical Hospital of Beihua University in Jilin.
Wen decided to seek another opinion and went to the First Hospital of the China Medical University and another three hospitals for HIV tests, which all proved to be negative.
The Jilin municipal CDC carried out a follow-up test which confirmed the negative result, and later the provincial CDC also confirmed the result.
If all the positive and subsequent negative test results are verified, Wen would be the first person in China to become free of HIV after having contracted it.
”I am pretty sure there are no problems with the blood samples and the tests,” said Liu Baogui, former director of the HIV/AIDS and STD Section of the CDC of Jilin City.
Liu informed Wen about the positive result of his test in 2001, and helped Wen receive CD4 lymphocyte, or T-cells, tests, the number of which decides if a person needs antiretroviral treatment.
However, the number of T-cells in Wen’s blood was not low enough to warrant antiretroviral treatment, Liu said.
Professor Wu Min, a member of the HIV/AIDS experts’ committee under the Ministry of Health, is sceptical about the validity of the original positive test result.
”I can not believe that such miracle could have really happened,” he said. “Some patients appear to be free of the virus after effective treatment, but the HIV anti-body is always there, so the test result will still be positive.”
Wu said the inaccuracy rate of tests by the provincial CDCs is lower than 0.01 percent.
”But it is possible that the person’s name and blood sample was mixed up at the Chuanying District CDC where Wen tested HIV positive for the first time,” he said.
The provincial CDC still has Wen’s blood serum sample which tested HIV positive in 2003. However, this may not be enough to solve the mystery.
”Blood serum does not contain DNA which can be compared with the blood sample which tested negative to decide if they are from the same person,” said Meng Xiangdong, director of the HIV/AIDS and STD Research Institute of the Jilin Provincial CDC.
In 2003, Andrew Stimpson, a 25-year-old Briton, tested HIV-negative 14 months after testing positive in May 2002. The case has never been scientifically explained.
