I haven't seen this diaried, apologies if I missed it.
Researchers at the Oregon Health and Science University have developed a vaccine that has successfully cleared the monkey version of HIV. The primate version of HIV (known as SIV) is a more deadly form of the virus, and usually the monkeys will die within a year or two of infection. The researchers infected 16 primates with SIV before using the vaccine. Nine of those primates were able to not only live, but their immune systems had completely eradicated the SIV virus.
The vaccine used the cytomegalovirus (CMV), which is part of the herpes family. Researchers modified the virus' natural ability to spread through the body, instead having it tell all the various parts of the immune system -- particularly the T-cells that can fight off SIV infection -- to target the SIV.
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The researchers are still trying to determine why some monkeys lived and others didn't, but obviously the fact that nine of the monkeys had no signs of the disease is significant.
Obviously this research is still in its infancy and there are still several significant hurdles to jump before human trials could begin, but the researchers do hope to begin human testing within two years. If this treatment could be replicated on humans, this would be quite possibly the most important medical break through in human history.
Just a few facts about HIV/AIDS to put this into perspective:
23 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are currently infected. Over one million people die from this disease every year (again just in Africa). In some countries in Africa, average life expectancy is below 50 years! That's not even mentioning the effect of the disease on economic development.
As I said, this research is still in the early stages and there is no guarantee that this type of vaccine would be successful in human trials, but the possibility of eradicating the HIV virus now seems like it is within reach.
*If you can please donate to aids research
UPDATE: Thanks to dmd76 for providing this link to a reddit post with comments from people who are actually involved with this research.