In a major breakthrough, Israeli scientists have developed a method that can wipe out HIV infected cells without affecting the healthy ones but it will be a while before it is available to the public, a medical journal says.

Although the researchers have registered an Israeli patent, the treatment must still go through trials on animals and humans, the latest edition of the British journal AIDS Research and Therapy says.

Peptides, unique short protein segments developed by the researchers, can interfere with replication and at the same time overwhelm the infected cell, triggering its self-destruction.

'It is our view that the results described in this work suggest a novel approach to specifically promote death of HIV-1 infected cells and thus may eventually be developed into a new and general anti-viral therapy,' Xinhua quoted the researchers as saying in the journal.

'The usual medications kill the virus that has entered the body during infection and the (peptide) treatment allows cells infected with the genetic load of the virus to be killed,' they added.