elite controller
n.— «Traywick was diagnosed 21 years ago and has been healthy ever since, despite never having taken anti-HIV medications. Antibody tests demonstrate conclusively that he harbors the virus. But his immune system has controlled it so effectively that repeated blood assays have never shown a detectable level of the invader.…In the argot of AIDS research, Traywick is an “elite controller.” Elites are extremely rare, accounting for an estimated one-third of 1% of known HIV-positive people and numbering perhaps 2,000. They and so-called viremic controllers, healthy infected people whose immune systems keep the virus at very low, although detectable, levels in the blood without drugs, are of keen interest to AIDS researchers.» —“HIV-Positive Group May Hold the Key to Defeating AIDS” by James Ricci Los Angeles Times July 6, 2006. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
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