Leading HIV researchers are hopeful they will find a cure for the disease affecting more than 38 million people, but say strategies to achieve "long-term remission" are more likely to be found.
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On Monday, seven of the world's top HIV scientists, including International AIDS society President Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, who discovered HIV, said they did not want to raise false hopes of a cure, but believed remission was achievable.
Remission, which is also known as a ''functional cure", means someone can still have detectable HIV in their body, but the virus is not active enough to require treatment.
Professor Barre-Sinoussi said a cohort of 14 French patients who received treatment very early in the course of their infection had already demonstrated this phenomenon, with some of them living for more than 10 years without the need for treatment. They are now known as "elite controllers" of HIV.
''There is no reason not to be optimistic,'' she said.
But Professor Barre-Sinoussi and the other scientists refused to speculate on how long it might take to find a cure that totally rids people of HIV because it could raise false hope.
''I don't know how long it will take,'' she said.
Professor Sharon Lewin, Australia's leading HIV researcher and head of infectious diseases at the Alfred Hospital, said the science suggested long-term remission was more likely at the moment.
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