[cmckn]

A vaccine has the potential to give you enough of an immune response to prevent an infection. But eradicating an existing HIV infection is a very different problem. The virus lies dormant in large quantities, and your immune system will only attack the virus that’s “awake”. The current research for a cure is focusing on eliminating this viral reservoir. While your immune system could theoretically keep the active HIV at bay, leading to a functional cure; we’ve never seen this play out (other than in Timothy Ray Brown). HIV always wakes up, and replicates faster than your lymphocytes can kill it (while using your immune system as a virus factory).