Eh the only way for it to stick around is the way chicken pox or herpes does, mostly dormant with occasional flare ups. Otherwise our body would keep fighting it off and we'd either die or kill it. Flu's serious shit.

I thought the flu did remain dormant but stayed in the body? That's why it mutates so fast and we have killed virus immunizations for it?

Are there any that outside cures can eliminate? Ones the body cannot fight off on its own?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Influenza#Replication
Don't think so, unless i misunderstand. It spreads and mutates quickly and can last for a bit outside the body but doesn't stick around year to year.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus#P..._and_treatment
Essentially that's not how viruses work.

Random, but we are actually finishing up a lecture of Influenza tomorrow in my virology class.

They say the reason HIV is so difficult to find a "cure" for is because it keeps mutating. According to the link of how viruses are halted, does that mean earlier strains of HIV are "cured"? I have not heard of ANY HIV being "cured". It seems the mutating factor will be difficult to incorporate when a cure is found for any one strain. Am I understanding this correctly or could one cure maybe help more than one strain?

You're confusing vaccine with cure.

If HIV didn't mutate so fast it would be easier to treat, but you don't cure viruses, your body fights them off or they become dormant/breakout or you just always have them. There's no 'cure.'

It's correct that one of the reasons HIV is hard to find this "cure" for is because of the mutation rate.

In regards to your question about the earlier strains of HIV, viruses don't really function in a way where this would be at all clinically functional.

For your final question, a vaccine would need to "attack" a piece of the HIV virus that doesn't rapidly mutate, so that it would still be functioning after clinical trials are completed, such as a glycoprotein. That's what this vaccine likely does. So, yes, the cure would have to help multiple strains. HIV mutates too quickly for a vaccine like a flu virus has.