Every day, 14,000 people are infected with HIV, the virus that leads to AIDs. There's no cure, but now a breakthrough -- a machine that could clean blood, keeping more and more people alive longer.

"I remember lying in bed thinking, 'I am going to die. I'm going to die. I feel so sick.' And I remember thinking laying in that bed, 'And I know exactly what it is,'" HIV patient John Paul Womble, told Ivanhoe. HIV could kill Womble. He watched his father die from the virus and now he is living the rest of his life with it. "I've got to live as healthy as I can, but this virus is not going to control me," he says. Now, a machine could help clean Womble's infected blood and keep him healthier, longer.

"It's designed to mimic the natural immune response of clearing viruses and toxins before cells and organs can be infected," Jim Joyce chairman and CEO of Aethlon Medical in San Diego, told Ivanhoe. Developed by infectious disease and biodefense experts, the hemopurifier works like a dialysis machine. Antibodies on these spaghetti-like fibers capture and remove viruses as blood filters through it.

"Your entire circulation flows through the cartridge about once every eight minutes," Joyce explains. The entire process takes less than a few hours. It could help patients infected with HIV, hepatitis C, as well as people with the measles, mumps and the flu. "The cartridge is able to selectively capture viruses."

A larger version of the machine would be used in a hospital, but a smaller one could be taken to emergencies. It could be a life-safer against the avian flu or bio-weapons like Ebola and small pox, giving people a chance to survive a deadly attack, whether it's from a terrorist or a virus.

"I don't have to be afraid," Womble says. "I have a virus. I've got to do something about that virus. I've got to treat that virus. I've got to live as healthy as I can." The hemopurifier is also a leading treatment candidate to protect United States civilian and military populations from bioterror threats and emerging pandemic threats like the bird flu and dengue fever that are untreatable with drugs and vaccines.