HIV Patients 'Free Of Virus' Using Unusual Drug Cocktail To Flush Out Infection

Five HIV patients have been left free of the virus after using two vaccines for the virus and a drug normally used to treat cancer in a ground-breaking trial .

The patients have also been able to end using daily antiretroviral drugs to combat the virus, with one of the patients now free for seven months.

The IrsiCaixa AIDS Research Institute in Barcelona, Spain, has been examining the issue for the past three years, the New Scientist reports.

Twenty-four people recently diagnosed with HIV were given two vaccines developed by scientists at the University of Oxford as well as the antiretroviral drugs.

Fifteen patients were later given more of one of the vaccines as well as three doses of cancer drug romidepsin, which is said to flush "HIV out of hiding".

Another vaccine boost was given before the traditional drugs were stopped.

Ten patients began experiencing HIV again.

But five of them suppressed the virus and did not have to return to the aniretroviral drugs.

On top of the person free for seven months, the other four have been free for six, 14, 19 and 21 weeks.

The Institute is now investigating why it received the differing results after revealing the results at Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Seattle last week.