A SMALL but growing band of people infected with HIV seem more than capable of keeping the virus at bay without anti-retroviral drugs. Some of these “elite controllers” have carried it for as long as 25 years without treatment and are thought to account for around 1 to 2 per cent of all people infected with the virus.
Last week, researchers at the 16th International AIDS Conference in Toronto, Canada, launched an appeal to identify and analyse at least a thousand of these people to see if their unusual immune systems hold the key to new treatments.
“Some have carried the virus for as long…
