Body's anti-HIV 'training manual' offers vaccine hopes

The body's own "training manual" for attacking HIV has been recorded by US scientists and it is hoped it can be used to design vaccines.

HIV mutates in order to survive the onslaught of a patient's immune system.

However, some patients develop highly effective antibodies that can neutralise huge swathes of HIV mutants.

A North Carolina team analysed the arms race between body and virus,published in the journal Nature, and has shown how these antibodies are made.

When someone is infected with HIV, their body produces antibodies to attack it. But the virus mutates and evades the offensive, so the body produces new antibodies that the virus then evades and the war goes on.

Read more at BBC health