Nobel winner says AIDS cure could come by 2050

THE Nobel laureate, Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, who helped to discover HIV says there is hope for an AIDS cure following recent discoveries.

She cited a patient in Berlin who appears to have been cured through a bone marrow transplant, "which proves that finding a way of eliminating the virus from the body is something that is realistic."

Other sources of optimism are the small minority of patients - less than 0.3 per cent - who exhibit no symptoms of the virus without ever receiving treatment; and a small group in France who received antiretroviral drugs and now live without treatment or symptoms, Ms Barre-Sinoussi said.

"There is hope ... but don't ask me for a date because we do not know."

She also said that it would be possible "in principle" to eliminate the AIDS pandemic by 2050, if barriers to drug access could be eliminated. Barriers such as economic, political and social.