MORE reactions have continued to trail the announcement of the apparent cure of Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV)-positive baby in the United States (US).

A leading scientist, who won the Nobel Prize for discovering HIV, Prof. Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, told The Times London that a cure for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) now “might be possible.”

Meanwhile, a study published in the March 4 JAMA Internal Medicine suggests that having HIV/AIDS may boost a man’s risk of heart attack, a study of more than 82,000 veterans.

Barre-Sinoussi said with renewed scientific efforts, an end to the worldwide epidemic could be achieved.

“We are now in a position that we have evidence suggesting a cure might be possible. We have to stimulate funding for research into cures. It’s ongoing, and it will take time, but more and more data is indicating that we have to move forward and work on a cure,” Barre-Sinoussi said.

The professor said that while antiretroviral drugs had been successful in helping people to live normal lives while infected, it was also important to try to find more permanent solutions to the disease. It still affects 100,000 people in Britain and 30 million worldwide.

Barre-Sinoussi won the Nobel prize for medicine in 2008 together with Luc Montagnier, for their work pinpointing the cause of AIDS.

Her comments come after U.S. researchers announced at the weekend that a baby girl who was born with HIV had been cured after very early treatment with standard drug therapy.

Researchers analysed information on the vets, 97 per cent of whom were men, between 2003 and 2009. The scientists excluded anyone who had heart disease at the outset, and then tracked the others, recording 871 heart attacks. About 1.34 per cent of the HIV-positive group had a heart attack during 5.9 years of follow-up, compared with 0.92 per cent of the others. After accounting for factors that could affect cardiac health -including smoking, cholesterol levels and substance abuse — the HIV patients’ risk of heart attack was about 1.5 times that seen in the non-HIV group.