A means to eradicate HIV infection, along with a vaccine to prevent its acquisition, is the key method by which AIDS will eventually be eliminated worldwide.

In prior publications, these researchers have documented that heart attacks, sudden death due to heart failure, and stroke are more frequent among HIV-infected individuals, despite complete viral suppression by antiretroviral therapy (ART). These conditions are particularly worrisome as people with HIV are aging.

In an editorial in the January issue of The Journal of Clinical Investigation, amfAR-funded scientist Dr. Steven Deeks of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), working with colleagues from UCSF and Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, outline another approach involving interferon that may be superior at achieving HIV suppression.

Over the past few years, these updates have reviewed a series of approaches to eradicating HIV, all of which recognize the need to abolish reservoirs of latent virus.