According to research published on Monday in Nature Medicine by Dr. Bjorn-Ole Jensen and other researchers, a fifth individual has been reported to have been cured of HIV. ABC said that the 53-year-old German man, dubbed the Düsseldorf patient, had received a stem cell transplant in 2014, which was deemed “too dangerous to provide as a treatment to everyone with HIV.” In 2019, he stopped taking HIV medicines. Although his successful case was made public then, researchers could not confirm his cure. On Monday, all of this changed.

The report states, “The absence of a viral resurgence and the absence of immunological indicators of HIV-1 antigen persistence constitute compelling evidence for HIV-1 cure.” Typically, HIV is a chronic, lifelong condition. “I believe we may learn a great deal from this patient and comparable cases of HIV cure,” Jensen told the publication. These observations provide hints as to how we could make the strategy safer.