CD8A and infection: During early HIV infection, which occurs between the first 6 and 9 mo of infection, the HIV-specific CD8+ T cells undergo massive proliferation in response to high HIV viremia and are functionally capable of partial viral control towards the individual viral setpoint, whereby viremia persists into chronic phase without combination antiretroviral therapy (cART) (Ogg et al, 1998; Shankar et al, 2000; Soghoian et al, 2012; Du et al, 2016).