A pharmaceutical composition for use in inactivating an HIV-1 proviral DNA integrated into the genome of a host cell latently infected with a retrovirus including a Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat (CRISPR)-associated endonuclease, and two or more different multiplex guide RNAs (gRNAs), wherein each of the at least two gRNAs is complementary to a different target nucleic acid sequence in a long terminal repeat (LTR) of the HIV-1 proviral DNA, whereby treating the host cell with the composition cleaves a double strand of the HIV-1 proviral DNA at a first target protospacer sequence with the CRISPR-associated endonuclease and cleaves a double strand of the HIV-1 proviral DNA at a second target protospacer sequence with the CRISPR-associated endonuclease and thereby excises an entire HIV-1 proviral genome and eradicates the HIV-1 proviral DNA from the host cell, and a pharmaceutically acceptable carrier.
