Potential HIV Cure Near

A British man with HIV undergoing a pioneering treatment to cure him of the disease has shown “remarkable” progress, doctors have reported from the UK. Scientists treating the 44-year-old patient are now hopeful of a breakthrough in what has been described as “one of the first serious attempts at a full cure for HIV”, AP reports. The man, who was not named, is the first of 50 people to complete a trial using the two-stage attack on the deadly virus. The research being carried out by five British universities and the country’s National Health Service is part of a new push to rid the disease. The trial patient said recent blood tests showed no detectable HIV virus, although it was too early to confirm that the treatment had worked. The new therapy aims to overcome a major barrier to clearing the virus from a sufferer’s body, which has challenged researchers for decades. The research by Oxford and Cambridge universities, Imperial College London, University College London and King’s College London, is testing a “kick and kill” technique to first expose and then destroy the virus.