Strategies and approaches to purge the latent reservoir of HIV

Despite the many successes of HAART, HIV persists in the host and is rapidly reactivated following treatment interruption. In addition, all vaccines against primate lentiviruses have failed. Thus, there is renewed emphasis on efforts to purge the reservoir of HIV and, thereby, eliminate the virus from the infected host. Although only a small number of CD4+ T cells harbor silent integrated proviruses, some of these cells are long lived. Therefore, HIV infection persists for the life of the individual and the viral reservoir decays with extremely slow kinetics. Basic research on HIV for over 20 years, has revealed how the virus is silenced and how it can be reactivated. These findings suggest that in the setting of optimal HAART, the goal of purging the viral reservoir and eliminating HIV from the host might be achievable.