In what might be the greatest medical discovery since penicillin, scientists have developed a broad-spectrum drug which they claim can cure everything - from the common cold to HIV to almost any other virus one can think of.

A team of researchers at the the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US created the drug, known by the acronym DRACO, which homes in on infected cells and makes them self-destructive .

Its hit list includes human rhinoviruses - the bugs that causes colds in adults and in children - flu, polio, a stomach bug and deadly dengue fever.

But DRACO is also expected to zap measles and German measles, cold sores, rabies and even HIV - and could be on pharmacy shelves in a decade, the Daily Mail reported.

Lead researcher Mike Rider said, "It's certainly possible that there's some virus that we aren't able to treat but we haven't found it yet." In lab tests, DRACO killed 15 viruses.

It also saved the lives of mice given a dose of flu that would have killed them.