The rate of immune escape vanishes when multiple immune responses control an HIV infection.

During the first months of HIV infection, the virus typically evolves several immune escape mutations. These mutations are found in epitopes in viral proteins and reduce the impact of the CD8⁺ T cells specific for these epitopes. Recent data show that only a subset of the epitopes escapes, that most of these escapes evolve early, and that the rate of immune escape slows down considerably.