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The African president who `treats` HIV/Aids patients
2007-05-13 09:21:46
By Christine Afandi
Many prominent leaders around the world have castigated this president who says that he has an herbal concoction that treats HIV/aids completely.
From January this year, President Yahya Jammeh of The Gambia, who as it is known grabbed power through force of arms 12 years ago, is extending a healing hand to his countrymen suffering from the dreaded HIV/Aids.
Long queues at Gambia`s state house are not from businessmen and other people who want to pledge loyalty to the president and win favours but HIV/aids patients.
The president claims his herbal remedy can kill HIV in his patients` blood, and most patients who have received his treatment confess to having healed completely and that there sero-status reverted after a few sessions of treatment.
A Sky news correspondent is among the lucky journalists who were allowed to witness President Jammeh\'s healing sessions.
The correspondent says, ` Dressed from head to toe in sparkling white robs, president Yahya Jammeh, leans over his latest patient and massages a herbal ointment into his chest.`
`A rub down with the cream, a splash on the face with another potion and a drink of a murky looking liquid, the president claims he\'ll be cured.`
And even as the world leaders and notable international institutions like the WHO frowned upon Jammeh a president of one of the smallest countries on the continent more and more patients troop to statehouse everyday to get healing, whether its because for sure there is a healing or its desperation to try on anything that can cure the HIV/Aids patients it remains to be seen.
Infact Jammeh\'s services have become so popular that to control the number of people forming beelines at state house waiting for treatment he has drawn up a timetable; he treats Asthma patients on Saturday and Aids patients on Thursdays.
The rest of the time he runs the country.
Also the president now insists that he can treat only HIV/Aids patients in a week.
These left me thinking on the stand of various African leaders on the issue of HIV/Aids which has affected 60 percent of the population in sub-Saharan Africa.
And the fact that people who were infected by HIV/Aids were usually condemned to death in most African countries before the launch of the life prolonging anti-retrovirals.
Tamsir Mbowe who is the minister for health in Gambia told Sky news that the president`s magic potion was `one hundred percent effective and had cured many people.`
Off course looking at his situation, he couldn`t have said otherwise and risk losing his plum post and favour from the president as politics is about bootlicking.
In February this year a high ranking WHO official was bundled out of the country with less ceremony after expressing doubts on the fact that Jammeh could heal HIV/Aids patients.
The president said `I do not have to convince anybody about my healing potion. I can cure Aids and I will not explain it to those who don\'t want to understand.`
Jammeh has remained adamant that he will not reveal his magic formula even `in a million years.`
But at least the Gambian statesman acknowledges the fact that HIV/Aids is real and a threat to humanity, some leaders have been hesitant in helping to stem out HIV/Aids.
Many patients suffering from HIV/Aids have faith in the president`s cure including Lamin Ceesay who spoke to VOA saying he had stopped taking ARVs when he began getting medication from Jammeh.
He said, ``I am not afraid because I believe, as according to what the president said, that he is certain of his herbal medicine, that he can cure HIV and that if you are on ARVs and you start his treatment, you have to stop them and only use his herbs.``
Patients who are lucky to be treated by the president have to stay in an isolated compound, adhere to a strict diet prescribed by the president and stop taking anti-retroviral.
For instance President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa insists that HIV can not cause Aids, as he says Aids is a virus and cannot cause a syndrome. A virus can cause a disease while Aids is not a disease but a syndrome.
Thus South Africa`s number one citizen`s confusing remarks have not helped much as the Aids infection statistics show that HIV/Aids prevalence has risen to 18.8 percent which is the sixth highest in the world.
Some leaders have been instrumental in their fight against the disease. Twenty years ago Dr Kenneth Kaunda`s son Gwebe Masuzgo succumbed to Aids.
He told a press conference, `It does not need my son\'s death to appeal to the international community to treat the question of Aids as a world problem.`
`It is something that is so serious, that once again I plead with the WHO and those in a position to help fund the campaign against Aids.`
President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has also been hailed for his openness on the fight against HIV/Aids which saw people take caution as the disease had ravaged Uganda robbing it of the strong working force.
Hence due to his calls for people to abstain or use condoms, and seek medical assistance instead of shying away at home, the HIV/Aids prevalence has been reduced considerably.
First ladies Janet Museveni of Uganda, Salma Kikwete of Tanzania and Lucy Kibaki of Kenya have also been in the fight against HIV/Aids.
The first ladies see abstinence as the only way for the youth to protect themselves from HIV/Aids infection.
In Tanzania, First Lady Salma Kikwete last year in June as a way to show solidarity with her other African counterparts to address the problem of HIV/Aids took adults back to traditional customs when every adult treated every child as his or her own.
She launched the first phase of a high-profile campaign against the HIV/Aids pandemic aimed at awakening adults to play a wider role in preventing infections among children.
Launching the project at the famous Karimjee grounds in Dar es Salaam on June 10, last year Tanzania`s Vice president Dr. Ali Mohammed Shein urged Tanzanians to support the first lady in the campaign to reduce the number of people affected by HIV/Aids by at least three percent by 2010.
`No strategy to reduce the spread of HIV/Aids can succeed until all homes, schools and communities are safer places for children and young people,` said Mama Kikwete.
First Lady Kikwete`s campaign dubbed, ` Treat Every Child as Your Own`, also calls for ending the secrecy and stigma that exist over the disease in Africa, where millions of people are currently infected and have died of the disease.
Well for the controversial President Jammeh of The Gambia, he is mostly interested in serving his people, saving those who HIV/Aids has not given respite through his healing herbal concoction.
He does not make any judgment of sorts about his patients and does not counsel them on how to avoid re-infection.
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