A male patient has become the second person ever to be cleared of the AIDS virus.

The patient has achieved "sustained remission" from HIV, according to doctors. 

He has been in remission for 18 months after his antiretroviral drugs were discontinued.

The case report, led by researchers at UCL and Imperial College London, comes around a decade after the first known case in Berlin.

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Timothy Ray Brown, known as the "Berlin patient", had HIV for more than a decade, until two stem-cell transplants cleared it from his body.

Professor Eduardo Olavarria, from Imperial College London, said: "While it is too premature to say with certainty that our patient is now cured of HIV, he is clearly in a long-term remission.

"We continue to monitor his condition, however the apparent success of this treatment injects new hope in the search for a long-awaited cure for HIV/Aids."