A UK HIV cure may have possibly eradicated the disease from the body a 44-year-old man, hope scientists and doctors from five of Britain's leading universities who came up with the new treatment.
The man was the first person to complete the new HIV treatment, reported the Sunday Times, which said 50 people are involved with the therapy that is trying to track down and kill the disease in all parts of the body, even in dormant cells. The two-staged attack on the virus has been dubbed "kick and kill," according to the Independent.
The new therapy could give hope for an irreversible cure for HIV, noted the Sunday Times.
Mark Samuels, managing director of the National Institute for Health Research Office for Clinical Research Infrastructure, told the Sunday Times that the results from the treatment's first patient gives researchers promise that a complete cure for the disease could be on the horizon.
"This is one of the first serious attempts at a full cure for HIV," Samuels said. "We are exploring the real possibility of curing HIV. This is a huge challenge and it's still early days but the progress has been remarkable."
Sky News said the existing treatment using antiretroviral therapies can only control the virus, enabling people to live longer lives.
Clinical trials on the "kick and kill" treatment were a collaboration with the universities of Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial College London, University College London, and King's College London, said the Independent.
HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, is transmitted mostly through sexual acts or by using infected needles, noted the Independent. The virus destroys T-cells to weaken the immune system, which are crucial to fighting disease and infection.
The Centers of Disease Control and Prevention reported that at the end of 2012, about 1.2 million people in the United States were living with HIV. Of that group, about 13 percent, or 1 in 8, did not know they were infected.
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