Extended holiday?

A percentage of people with HIV may be able to teach their immune systems to repress the virus without the help of drugs, according to a Massachusetts General Hospital-Harvard Medical School study published in the journal Nature. Eric Rosenberg, chief author of the study, said it suggests that patients who are treated within a short time of becoming infected seem able to stop taking drugs and suppress the virus on their own. Rosenberg and colleagues closely followed eight patients who had recently become infected with HIV. Five of the eight patients have maintained low enough levels of the virus to stay off antiviral drugs for nine to 12 months now after stopping combination therapy. Two others chose to continue the drags, though their virus levels were low enough that they did not have to do so. The researchers believe that starting and stopping treatment might help patients' immune systems produce enough CD4 cells to keep HIV under control for years.