A step forward.

An HIV-positive man in the UK has officially become the second person in the world to be cleared of the Aids virus. Ravindra Gupta, a professor and HIV biologist, took charge of the team of doctors treating the man in question. He said: "There is no virus there that we can measure. We can't detect anything." Gupta has described the man as "functionally cured" and "in remission". However, he also pointed out: "It's too early to say he's cured." The man is being called "the London patient", because his case is similar to the first known case of a functional cure of HIV - in an American man, Timothy Brown, who became known as the Berlin patient. Mr Brown underwent similar treatment to the "London patient" in Germany in 2007, which also cleared his HIV. According to experts, Brown has been living in the US, and is still free of the disease. Sharon Lewin, co-chair of the International AIDS Society's cure research advisory board, told Reuters that the London case gives people hope. "We haven't cured HIV, but this gives us hope that it's going to be feasible one day to eliminate the virus," she explained. A great step in the right direction.