Research carried out by the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) in conjunction with pharmaceutical firm Sanofi has produced an antibody capable of attacking 99 percent of HIV strains.

The International Aids Society has heralded the finding as an “exciting breakthrough.”

The human body has difficulty fighting HIV because of the way that the virus changes and mutates — a single patient can have numerous unique strains of the infection present in their body simultaneously.

However, a slim minority of people who suffer from HIV eventually develop a means of battling back in the form of broadly neutralizing antibodies.

These proteins are capable of killing off numerous HIV strains at once, so for this joint study between NIH and Sanofi, researchers set out to find a way to harness this natural defense.

Image Credit:  CDC/Public Domain

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